One Good Reason: A Collection
by Gotham'sProphet
Summary: Raphael, after the events of TMNT 2014, has been visiting the surface to check out the local combat sport scene. Boxing, MMA, BJJ, the like. He finds a troubled fighter a few years older than him, who has lost her spark to fight. He knows that it's a bad idea, but he offers to train her. She accepts. And now both are looking for one good reason to continue.
1. DAY ZERO

Raphael didn't get out much. When he thought to the racism, sexism, you-name-it in New York City, it made the too-familiar rooms of the lair seem even homelier. He had pro and con'd going to the surface several times.

Con. He was a giant mutant turtle, that practiced ninjutsu and would make the bodybuilders in the city get weak in the knees if he ever got around to joining a competition. He would be hated and discriminated against. Pro. He could get some fresh air, or as close as one could get to fresh air. Con. He had to wear an itchy trench coat that clung to his massive limbs, and it was probably too small for him. Pro. He wore the coat with a Duluth hat that he found in the trash; he knew it was thirty or forty dollars in the store and the closest he felt to fashionable was when he wore it. Con. His brothers were always wondering why he left the lair so often, almost every night or every other night. Leonardo had even tried following him a couple of times. Pro. Master Splinter never discouraged him from going out. A ninja must be a skilled practitioner of blending through the crowd unnoticed...the old rat only barred him from revealing his identity or his home to outsiders.

Con. He had to stand against the wall when he went to the local MMA cage fights, which were every couple of weeks. They were about four hours long, and while his legs were strong, he would've liked to sit down with a hot dog to watch the fighters. Pro. By attending the tournaments, he could see one of his favorite fighters kick her opponents in the face with a move he taught her himself.

Her name was Jude Ellis, and Raphael had been watching her fight for about six months before he began to train her. She was a boxer, originally, one of the best of the New York women's bantamweight class. They nicknamed her "Ellis Island", because being proving yourself to her was considered a rite of passage into the title picture. Only difference between her and a trialhorse is that she was successful. And instead of hotshots moving through her to get to the top, she was turning more than a few back to where they came from before she moved up to MMA.

Many of the others in her class were arrogant and disrespectful to each other during the post-fight fan signings, but Ellis never raised her voice, never said a word when someone got in her face. Even if Raphael would never let that fly with him, he understood why: anyone ballsy enough to step into a cage to fight someone who intended to hurt them deserved respect. But it wasn't until Ellis' coach died that Raph saw a change. There was a short tribute to him, and that was when Raph learned that her coach was her father.

She refused to fight for four straight weeks. The streak ended with one match, Raphael saw, where she put down her gloves and let the other girl hammer her fists at her face. She wasn't having fun anymore, she was punishing herself. He knew what that looked like because he'd done it so often himself. After that fight, when she showed up to do post-fight signings, Raph built up the nerve to ask for an autograph.

She was smaller up-close, though Raph suspected that was because he was so tall. Her short pixie hair was disheveled, pulled to one side because she'd needed stitches along her hairline and the blood had tinged the ash blonde hair an odd red-brown color that Raph found often under his fingernails. She wore her boxing trunks and a black tank top over her sports bra, and a swollen goose egg on the top of one of her already angular cheekbones. There were a few studs pierced along the tops of her ears, a ring around the left side of her lower lip, and her hands, which Raph had never seem gloveless, had tattoos on the digits too small for him to see. Her sun-starved pale skin was purpling slowly under her jaw, and when she sat down at the signing table, Raph saw her temple flex as she gritted her teeth against the pain. He was the only one at her table.

He dropped a torn section of his bandana about four inches long in front of her, and she opened up a new Sharpie without looking at him or batting an eyelash at the fabric she was signing. "Who do you want this going out to?"

"Raphael," He said, scaly hands shoved in the too-small pockets of his trenchcoat. He wanted to say something Leo would say, about there being more to life than hardship. Only problem was that he didn't buy that shpeel himself. Life _was_ hardship. So why would he try to peddle it to someone who might be of the same mind as him?

She signed it with her left hand, which was still wrapped and her other hand was propped against her face. "Raphael with an 'F' or a 'P'-'H'?"

 _How the hell else do you spell it?_ Raphael thought for a second, before answering, "'P'-'H'."

"I remember you, you know," She said as she wrote his name carefully in blue ink, "You've been coming to all my matches for a while now…"

Raph felt that reliable instinct nudge his shell to run, as it had several times in the past and subsequently kept him out of the Hashi. For the first time, because he wasn't in any apparent danger and small talk wasn't going to kill him, he ignored it. There was a kind streak buried in him beneath the broken black concrete of his abrasive personality, and lately, watching a fellow fighter struggle, that streak was unearthing itself. "Yeah, I have. You been noticin' me?"

"Hard not to notice a big guy in a trench coat standing a little ways off in the crowd," She handed the strip of fabric back to him, interlacing her fingers on the table. The corner of her mouth cocked up, and she winced as it pulled at a cut on her lip, "Even with blood in your eyes." She suggested, her voice quieter, "Makes me wonder whether you're a stalker or a fan of my work."

"I'm no stalker," Raph clarified gruffly, but noticed something, "Though, watching you fight tonight makes a guy wonder...Is it just 'work' to you?"

Jude stared at him for a beat, and her battered face was haunting to look at for a second. "It _becomes_ work when the reason you started isn't around anymore."

Without another word, she shifted her chair and got up. Raphael watched as she struggled not to limp her way to the back and the door closed behind her. He shrugged his shoulders, shoving his autograph into his pocket and briskly walked to the exit.

A boom of thunder clapped overhead as Raph's feet found the city sidewalk again, and he looked up to the blackening sky. On a good day, he actually liked the rain. Most of his time below the surface was spent training, and when his skin was hot after hours of work, all he thought about was cold rainshowers. He stood on that street in front of the gym a bit longer, feeling the coolness of the air.

Finally, the clouds busted open and their entire load drenched New York in thick droplets that soon made heavy rivulets of water flow down Raphael's coat and slick it to his scaly skin. Streams fell off his hat when he tilted his head. He rolled the toothpick in his mouth over with his tongue, and his breathing slowed as he relaxed under the rain. One of the few moments of peace he found in the chaos and crime of New York City.

He glanced around, crossing his arms. He wasn't in much of a rush, he didn't have to be back in the lair for another couple of hours. Just had to find a manhole and dive in it when he was ready, walk back home.

Not even ten feet from his left, he saw someone running after a bus that had just pulled away from the curb, a duffel bag in one hand and no umbrella. Sweats, a hoodie, and sneakers. Small, feminine form, and he heard her swear under her breath as she straightened; she turned around and Raph saw that it was Jude Ellis under the hood.

She saw him and he saw her, and slowly, she went to stand near him to wait for the next bus. Instead of being out under the rain, she chose to stand in the doorway of the gym.

Raph stared when she reached into her duffel and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Jude hesitantly asked him, a smoke between her teeth, "I don't suppose you have a lighter on you?"

It wasn't that she was young and his guess placed her as a few years out of her teens. A bit older than him. It was that he used to do that. Smoke. He was barely fifteen and found a pack someone had thrown out, half-smoked in the sewers. He'd seen people do it in movies, and the next time he was alone after finding a lighter, he tried it. He'd since quit cold turkey. After Michaelangelo found him smoking, he made Raph promise to quit in exchange for keeping it a secret from Splinter...Part of the reason he kept a toothpick in his mouth was to suppress the urge...but a lighter was still a useful thing to have. His huge reptilian fingers fumbled in the inner pocket of his jacket, and landed on the plain black BIC lighter he used to smoke with, tossing it to her.

"Thanks," She caught it, and flicked it a few times. Each time it flared up, illuminating her face, Raphael caught sight of the tear stains under her eyes. He was reminded of how lucky he was to _have_ brothers that gave a damn enough to tell him that smoking was self-destructive to your life. She gave it back and he stowed it away, both of them listening to the rain.

"Probably heard this a ton," He said suddenly, his voice raised over the rain, "But smoking's a slippery slope to all types'a problems."

Jude winced, whether at what he'd said or her injuries - he didn't know, "I know."

"How long?" He wasn't sure why exactly he cared, but he figured they weren't doing much else. Might as well talk.

"Month," She said, tapping off ash.

Raph realized that's the extent of her hiatus, meaning she'd started right after her dad died. "I'm-uh...sorry about your-"

"-my loss?" She shook her head, her jaw set as her eyes drifted down to her cigarette, "...you know, my old man? He'd be ashamed of me if he knew I was doing this. Smoking, throwing fights...just because I felt low." Her knuckles whitened, "Letting them go to town at my face, just so I can feel something - anything."

Raphael felt like he shouldn't be hearing this. It was personal, and he wondered if she'd forgotten he was listening... but he found himself relating to her, sympathizing with her. He'd been in her position enough times.

One time, Leonardo had been injured during one of their spars. Raph had nearly dropped him on his head. They were both young, and he'd wanted to try a move they saw on TV. He just didn't have the strength to keep his brother on his shoulders, and his knees buckled at the wrong time. While Leo recovered, Raphael almost tore himself to shreds training and he never stopped. He gained so much muscle in such a short span of time that by the time he was sixteen, he could do a several push-ups with his brothers sitting on his back. He would never drop them again.

"I get that," He said at last, and her gaze snapped over to him, his green face partially hidden by the rainwater coming off his hat. "I'm a fighter too, see...Loss changes people, don't matter where it is - life or death situations, family, friends, whatever."

She was silent for a few moments, the rain growing louder as it drew on. She said, "It's not just work to me, fighting...it's like I said before: my dad was why I started, fell in love with it. It's in my blood. It's just…"

"...you aren't sure if you can continue without him?" He finished, then added, "Or if you even should?"

Raphael would never admit this aloud, but he felt that way about ninjutsu sometimes. He would always be fighting, but without Master Splinter to reinforce teachings, he wondered about the pragmatism of staying in the shadows in the face of things like hostages, sieges, and violent crime. He knew that he loved the rat father who raised him and his brothers, but this was one thing he wasn't sure he would follow in the long run.

"I know that the spark's in me," She confessed, her finished cigarette under her shoe. "I just need to find it again…"

Raphael didn't think this was at all a good idea. He knew this was crossing Splinter's line, but then again, April hadn't sold them out. And she was a reporter of all things, it was beyond easy for her to just tell everyone. Jude? She was an MMA fighter who's lost her will to fight. Raph wasn't good at comforting people and would never hold any illusions like he was. But he was good at soul-searching, or at least he thought he should be by now.

He exhaled through his nose, twisting his toothpick with his fingers. "I'm pretty sure this is a bad idea, but uh...I might be able to help."

Jude looked at him first in the face, then up and down. "You said you were a fighter. What do you know?"

She meant styles of fighting, he figured. Raph couldn't keep the smugness out of his smirk. "You want the short list or the long one?"

"Whichever."

"Ninjutsu, boxing, judo, kickboxing, Tai Chi, Tae Kwon Do, BJJ, wrestling," His eyes moved across the street, to a TV outlet store showing a newsfeed. He saw that it was about his brothers and his latest exploits, and made an addition to his short list, gauging her face, "Vigilantism…"

"Vigilantism?" She repeated, her eyebrows - one with a scar through it. He nodded over towards the TV outlet, and she followed his gaze. She squinted, and then her eyes went wide, turning back to him, "Wait...the Sacks incident a few months ago, that was…?"

"Us," Raph said, smiling fully now, "We saved you from a lotta crap, I'll tell ya that much."

"...Thanks," She said, and slowly, held her hand out in the rain between them, "Okay, uh...Raphael, you said your name was-"

"-Raph."

"-Raph," Jude's face brightened.

He regarded her hand like it was a poison snake for a second, but forcibly relaxed himself. He took a breath, held it as he outstretched a green, three-fingered hand out to clasp hers gently, "Jude."

She saw his...interestingly green hand, felt the scales in her palm, but gave it a firm, businesslike squeeze. It didn't last long, and when they let go, she said, expression placid, "So...hypothetically, if we were to start training...I have a gym in upper Harlem, called Gym Pugilist, closes at eight. I live right above it. If I waited for you there after eight, would you be able to come by then? Hypothetically, of course."

"Hypothetically," He parroted, a silent laugh passing his mouth. "If you were to be there tomorrow night…"

They saw the lights of the bus poke out from around a corner and start down the street through the rain. Jude readjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder and stepped out from the doorway, "I might be ready."

The bus stopped where it had earlier, and Jude got onto it, tossing a wad to the driver. Raphael saw her weave through the seats until she slumped in the bench seat at the back, and lifted a hand when she waved at him as the bus drove off.


	2. DAY 15

**DAY 15 OF TRAINING**

He'd been coming to these training sessions wondering if this was at all wise, what he was doing. And then it hit him - her wrapped foot, her body in midair and her heel collided with his jaw, knocking him onto his shell faster than he could blink blackness out of his vision from the shot. He pressed the palms of his hands to the training mat, breathing rapidly until he could see the lights above him. He'd heard the unmistakable sound of the duct tape on his shell loosening, and he gingerly sat up.

Raphael saw her hand in front of him, and took it, even though he was mostly pulling himself to his feet. He massaged his jaw, feeling the pangs of her kick over and over.

"You alright?" Jude said, an apologetic wince ghosting about her cheekbones.

Raph opened and closed his mouth, testing the damage. He'd bitten his tongue, and he could taste blood, but it wasn't anything to get excited about. "'m fine…" He sighed, checking the time on the large clock on the wall before asking her, "Wanna call it a night?"

"Sure," She said, plucking up her towel from the chair by the wall and draping it over her shoulders. Jude was about to walk away, until she inquired to him, "Uh, Raphael. I know we haven't known each other that long, but I think I might head out for some food. It'd be great if you joined me, if you don't have to jet."

A long silence drowned the room, the only bubbles breaking it was the sounds of the city beyond the walls. Something was churning in Raphael's stomach, though he couldn't tell if it _was_ just hunger or the instincts inside telling him that this was probably as bad an idea as training her. One bad idea after another. She was half his size, a fourth his weight, she was human and scrappy and he really wasn't in any danger from being alone with her. He was bulletproof. She had white skin that bruised easily no matter how much body conditioning she put her body through.

"You got a car?" He asked, still debating. He could practically write Leo's lecture for him.

"Just got it the other day, used GMC Yukon," She said, and scrunched her nose up, detecting his hesitation. "Look, it's got blacked out windows and it sits tall. If you didn't want to wear the coat, you could."

"It's not that," Raphael said quickly, but amended, rubbing the back of his neck, "Well, it's part of it...thing is, lookin' like we do don't encourage anybody to be pleasant. You're one of, like, three humans that I even talk to. My father always says not to put your trust in people just because you want to put your trust in _someone_."

Jude's mouth curled up in a grin. "My old man used to say the same thing." She faced him, slowly striding over until they were just arms' length apart. "Listen, there's a list three miles long of reasons why this could've been a bad idea." Raph couldn't argue with that. "But I've got nothing to lose with this arrangement. But I'll tell you what - I'm glad I agreed to it. I'm glad we met." Her grin got wider, her lip ring winking at him. "I got a hell of a coach."

Raphael felt the blood rush to his cheeks, and he turned away, fighting a smile. "Alright, get your keys - let's go. I'm starvin'. Wastin' away, waiting on you. Skin and bones over here."

Jude only uttered a tired sigh, rolling her eyes as she followed him out.

* * *

"What is this?" Raphael leaned over the console to peer at the radio, the windows up and the A/C blasting cold air against his chest as Jude drove them through New York. The music that was pounding through the sound system in here was unlike anything he or Mikey could've scrounged up at home, plenty of saxophone, some rapping and an easy sway to it that sounded like it was inspired by older music. "It's pretty good."

"You like that? Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment, song's called 'Sunday Candy'," She told him, before swerving as a biker cut her off, slowed her down and she promptly rolled down her window to shout, "Yo, the point of a pedal-bike is to _fucking pedal it_!"

Raph busted up laughing, never seeing anything like this in his life. Never been in an actual car, never gone for fast food, never witnessed the streets of New York from inside the cars, never saw a twenty-something flip off a biker before, and he'd never, ever in a million years think he'd be above ground doing something like this with a human.

He was taken aback, taken to his younger years where anything new would make his eyes really big and he'd get quiet, like he did now. Uncharacteristically of him, he was silent, but his smile betrayed what might've been mistaken for indifference. In truth, he was having the time of his life.

His thoughts were interrupted by her voice, "Where were you wanting to eat?"

"I was thinkin' fast food," Raphael said, uncertainty in his tone and he ignored how confined he felt squeezed into this seat. He was grateful that she took him along, he wasn't gonna complain and be an ass, "Not really smart to go in and sit...I guess, wherever you wanna go, so long as it's a drive thru window."

"Works for me," She said, pulling up to a stop light and pausing to look at him, saying, "You know, if you want the drive thru treatment, you'll have to get in the back."

Raphael didn't argue. The space between their seats was tighter than he thought as he forced his broad shoulders in the gap, pushing against the back of her seat to help. Frustrated, he sang with a drizzle of sarcasm in his rough voice, "Big turtle in a little car…"

Jude snorted, and as the light flashed green, she got up on the gas - the car lurching forward, Raph's hands slipped, falling on his face into the footwell of the back seat with a grunt, but the widest part of his shell was stuck. He eased himself back, turned so he was on his side, and pushed through, until it was just his massive thighs and his legs that needed to be worked through. He swore under his breath as his cheeks reddened, the jittering in his nerves as his own insecurity at being this huge caught up to his giddiness about this whole adventure.

Once he righted himself up in the back seat, he laid low until he saw the lights from the glowing display of the fast food menu on their left, poking his head up."I'll take a helluva lot of chicken nuggets, a large fry and whatever you're drinkin'."

"Works for me," Jude leaned out of the window, saying clearly into the ordering microphone, "I'll have four number tens, a number nine, and two regular strawberry-banana smoothies."

* * *

When Raph noticed the car finally stopped moving mid-smoothie, he leant up to see that the Hudson river was just to their rear. For a mutant turtle who had lived beneath the city his entire life, he was absolutely dumbstruck by what he saw.

The water distorted the lights cast upon it by Manhattan, the skyline illuminated by the city that never slept and Raph's eyes grew wide as they locked onto the familiar shape of the Empire State Building. Entranced by the sight, he gathered his remaining food into his bag and his drink, climbing over the back of the seats into the empty space the SUV left bare. He put down his bag, pressing his hand against the cool glass of the window. He was ten years old again, seeing Times Square for the first time; in his heart, he was amazed but in his mind, terrified. "Wow…"

He heard the sound of a car door shutting, the scrape of boots against the pavement and Jude came into his vision, carrying her McDonalds bag. He drew back, seeing her unlock the back door of the car. The door lifted up and away, Jude hiking herself up to sit beside him in the tailgate. Raph inhaled heavy lungfuls of the crisp smell of summertime rivers mixed with the day's worth of sun on the asphalt.

Jude noticed his intense stare on the city, the straw of her smoothie in her teeth. Her hair looked more white than blonde under the dim streetlights and the lights of her car, which played Donnie Trumpet's "Windows" softly. She remembered the first time she was here. She was eleven years old and sitting on her father's shoulders. Her mother was there... and they were a family. Even if Raphael's features were much different from hers, he was wearing the same expression she'd had that day. Of pure, unadulterated wonder, at something that had been there right under his nose.

"Windows" played slow, and the lyrics crept between them like an invisible cat, " _Don't you look up to me...don't trust a word I say…Don't you end up like me, if you learn one thing today…"_

Raphael finally felt her eyes on him, and met them with his, the song warning him as Leo would, " _Careful…Careful…"_

He looked away, to the thick pink liquid in his clear plastic cup, "This is actually pretty good...how much do I owe you for all this? I mean, that _was_ forty chicken nuggets you bought."

"Don't worry about it," Jude waved a hand dismissively, nibbling on her lip ring, "Least I can do for all the help you've been giving me."

Raphael sensed his cheeks heating up again, but he hid it by wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's nothin', really."

"It's something," Jude said, elbowing him in the bicep, which she figured must've been as big around as her head. "After my dad died, I was...wrecked. A mess. I didn't have anybody other than him."

"Nobody?" Raph asked, his bandana bunching as he furrowed his eyebrows. "If, uh...you don't mind me askin', why not? Where's your mom?"

"Yeah...where _is_ my mom?" Jude repeated bitterly, the tattoos on her fingers pronounced against her cup. She spoke with an old resentment, "She and my old man were divorced...She was…Pfft." Jude pushed her tongue in her cheek, searching for words. "She was a real piece of work. She never approved of my dad boxing, didn't think it was 'practical' when raising a family to fight for money. Once she found out I wanted to do it too, she threatened divorce...didn't think it was 'proper' for a girl to fight. Especially at my age."

"How old were you?" Raph asked, chewing a few fries.

"Fourteen," She shook her head, her nose wrinkling in disgust. "She told me that if I ever stepped into an actual ring, she'd never speak to me again."

Raphael listened to all of this, watching residual anger and hurt war on her face. He exhaled a single word, "Shit...obviously you didn't listen."

"She was trying to say that boxing would make me not want to get married, that I'd have scars that would drive potential husbands away - like marriage was all I was made for," The muscles in her pale arms flexed as she ranted, and then she glanced at him, asking him, "How screwed up is that?"

Raph didn't fully understand the whole need to be married, but he did understand about having a set of rules or conditions placed upon you, then being ostracized for challenging them. But there was a difference. The rules placed upon him were put there to protect him from the discrimination of the outside world, to keep him safe. The box Jude's mom shoved her in was raised from one of three places: jealousy, bigotry, or flat-out sexism. Or all of the above.

"Pretty screwed up," Raph agreed. Against better judgment of his comedic skills, he attempted a joke, "I get you. Case you haven't noticed, I'm a turtle. I'm supposed to be in a zoo or 'in the wild'. I'm _not_ supposed to be walking, talking, and ass-kicking."

He didn't expect him to wax philosophical, but she was nodding as he spoke like she followed all of that, so he went on, "We all got someone we're supposed to be, someone we can be, but there's nothing that says we've got to be that person…Just because you look a certain way, you're this species or that species, don't mean you're meant to be that and only that. You can do what you want, do something amazing. Your mom didn't get that, and you know what, between you an' me - you turned out alright from where I'm standing."

Jude stared at him, her demeanor brightening. A timid smile spread across her face, and she was finding herself pleasantly surprised at him. This brutish mutant turtle, who could probably break her in half over his knee, was talking to her with an earnest sincerity, a kindness in his gravelly voice.

"Raphael."

Raph felt his cheeks coloring under his dark green skin, freezing with the straw of his drink inches from his lips. The scar above his top lip twitched, "What?"

She wanted to tell him that she thought he spoke really well, that she could listen to him talk for hours. She didn't. Her eyes just cast out over the river, and she said quietly, "I appreciate you saying that...I really do."

A few moments passed, and the corner of Raph's mouth perked up, "Welcome."

"For what it's worth, I think you're alright too." Jude said, running her fingers through her short hair and bringing her knee up to her chest, holding it there with her lean arms.

"Uh…" Raph kicked himself inside for his mind blanking when she said that, "Thanks…" He remembered something, jumping as he told her, "Oh...I got you somethin'."

His big fingers clumsily moved to his belt, to a pouch on his hip. His hand worked the drawstring loose, taking out a small orange-and-white box and handing it to her. "I don't care if you use 'em or not, just wanted you to have 'em."

Jude's eyes narrowed at the words on the box. She felt awkward, holding it in tattooed hands. Nobody had done something like this for her before. Just a simple gesture. "Nicorette."

"I don't know if you planned on quittin', but I just wanted you to know," Raph tried to brush it off like it was nothing, watching her blank face. He rambled, "I don't know, that in case you wanted to. I can help."

A full minute passed, her eyes glued to the box and his glued to her. Then, her own fingers, usually strong and sure, shook as she pried open the box. She was hearing her father's words in her head. _Only if you're sure, if you're absolutely sure you want to, Judie._ He'd said that before she ever did anything risky. Raph didn't know this, but her father died from COPD...from smoking. The last thing she wanted to do was disgrace him by smoking, but when it happened...when he died, she found herself with a cigarette in her hand. She felt closer to him when she did that, and hated it, and herself, ever since.

"You're only supposed to use 'em when you're one-hundred-percent sure you wanna quit, just so you know," Raphael warned hastily, his hands dumbly on his lap.

"I'm doing this shit right now," She said through a tight jaw, and she popped out the first piece out of the foil into her hand. She threw it in her mouth, chewing quickly and then slowed, tasting the flavor.

Raphael was looking at her, his brows raised. His curiosity was piqued; he quit smoking cold turkey. Didn't have any nicotine gum to help him. "How is it?"

Jude's lips were cocked a bit to the right as she grinned. "Good. Really, really good."


	3. DAY 20

**DAY 20 OF TRAINING**

Jude usually thought Sunday nights to be calm, peaceful times where she could relax alone without distraction. Raphael rarely came by on Sundays, her gym closed earlier, and the few friends she had were out clubbing. So, she made the most out of her Sunday nights.

It started with a hot bath, water just below scalding temperatures and smelling like coconut with a bath bomb from a Christmas set she bought herself last year. She lowered herself into the water with a satisfied hiss through her teeth, biting her lip as her back touched the smooth bottom of her tub. She felt the stinging of her latest bumps and bruises reacting, her pores opening up with the heat, and her tight muscles loosened as she stretched.

Inhaling a shallow breath, she submerged herself below the surface and watched the bubbles leave her nose. She had heard it then, muffled by the liquid flooding her ears. The muted _thud_ of something falling on the apartment floor, or the distant crackle of someone forcibly breaking into the floor below from the back door, in the gym. Jude reemerged quickly, water thrown onto the floor and she was hyperventilating. She stood up in the tub, naked and wet and shivering from the sudden air hitting her bare skin. She waited, waited for any further sounds confirming what she'd heard. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she reached to the bathroom door for the towel hanging from the hook. She wrapped it around her torso under her armpits, tucking the ends in so it would stay on her when she moved.

Another noise, an eerie creaking of the door a floor down. She'd never fixed the hinge on that door for this reason: security. So she could tell where the burglars were when they came. She had ten seconds before they got to where she was.

She took a deep breath, digging within herself for that light, that fire. Jude Ellis was an MMA fighter, trained in multiple forms of martial arts. But that was inside a ring with a referee and rules. Outside the ring...Jude Ellis had been in New York all her life, and she'd been a fighter since she left the womb struggling to breathe. If anyone had the nerve to break into her gym, her domain - they deserved what came to them.

Jude crouched low, leaving the bathroom and stepping to the kitchen on the balls of her feet. The far counter was part of a solid wall, and on the other side of that wall was the hallway the staircase from the gym led to. Once she stalked over to that counter, she poked a hand into the cabinet she kept ajar for the baseball bat stashed there. Sure, she had a pistol taped under her dining table and under every boxing ring in her gym, but this might just be some homeless kid trying to get some food.

Jude considered the possibility that this might be Raphael as she heard featherweight footsteps ascending the stairs at a slow, cautious pace. Then again, she thought, Raph always called out when he came in. So he wouldn't spook her. Maybe he saw the lights off and got confused. Jude swore under her breath; that didn't sound like him either. Raph would just go home, figure she's asleep.

Jude couldn't believe she was about to do this. Her father would have smacked her in the back of the head for stupidity for doing this. She tightened her grip on the bat, raising up slightly in her stance. She called out, voice steady as she could keep it, "Raphael? That you?"

Whoever it was, they creaked the floors beneath their feet; they must've been tall, and big, Jude thought. They were at the top of the stairs, just on the other side of the wall. She inched herself closer to the end of the counter, raising her bat and flexing her arms, readying the swing. Jude shivered as she watched a droplet of water run down her arm, to her elbow, and then fall - she held her breath. She could see the shining of the lights beyond her own windows on the drop, and it hit the wooden floor, flattening against the hard surface with a soft wet drip. A second went by; it felt more like ten minutes.

Something rushed around the corner in a burst of movement and shadow, brandishing edged metal that whirred in the air, but it clattered to the floor as Jude's bat made contact. With what, exactly, she didn't know; the sound it made hitting the back of her intruder was odd, like the thump-crack of hitting a rotting tree. She smacked him again and again with it, her towel falling to the floor with the violent motion. She heard a male voice, lighter than Raphael's and clearer, yelp in pain. Jude reached over the counter to flick the light on, telling whoever it was, "You're trespassing, dirtbag."

But that was before she saw him. Another mutant turtle, towering over her in height and dwarfing her in size, muscles coiling almost every part of him. He wasn't nearly as huge as Raphael, but he was leaner, swifter, and - from what she could see - hurt. One of his hands crossed his chest and over his shoulder, holding a part of his shell - what she'd cracked with her bat. He was glaring at her through eyes that were a most vibrant ocean blue, and through the eyeholes of a bandana just as blue. He wore a strange version of paneled samurai garb, with odd wrapped shoes and at his feet were what he'd been whirling around: two katanas, blue leather wrapped around the hilt.

"Which one are you?" She asked, but he didn't seem preoccupied with her question as he noticed what she hadn't yet.

He lifted his hands to cover his eyes, trying not to look at her, "Uh, ma'am...you're kinda...Uhm." He gestured to her body, and when she saw what he meant, paling, he said, "Might want to grab your towel."

Ignoring her body flushing, Jude reached down and snatched it from the floor, wrapping it around her body again. She shook the bat at him, stammering,"A-answer me. Which one of Raph's brothers are you?"

"Leonardo," He said, lowering his hands only slightly, palms-out as if warding off a police officer, "You must be Jude."

"I am," She confirmed, narrowing her eyes at him. "Why are you in my house, hmm?"

She tensed as he bent to pick up his katanas, but he did it slowly, saying to her, "Easy, easy…" He twirled them in his hands before he resheathed them on the criss-crossing _saya_ scabbards on his shell. "I came to find out what kind of person you were, and to find out what you want with my brother."

"Your brother's training me, nothing more," Jude said simply. She didn't have to insist, she didn't have to prove anything to Raph's older brother. Raph would tell him the same thing. She used her free hand to smear her wet hair out of her face. "Does Raphael know you're here?"

Leonardo didn't answer. Jude shook her head. "Does your sensei know you're here?" When the turtle's eyes widened, she said, "Yeah, I know about Splinter...but you don't have to worry about me."

"Not that I believe you, but why not?" He asked, leaning his hip against the counter and crossing his arms. She noticed that like Raph, Leo's arms were inked with black tattoos on the green skin. "And yes, my sensei does know I'm here."

Jude saw that he kept glancing between her and her bat, and she decided that she wasn't in much danger now. She returned the bat to where she'd had it, in the lower cabinets.

She thought on his question for a second, standing there dripping water onto the floor wrapped in a towel and showing the tattoos on her fingers as she pressed a hand to her chest. She sighed, and put her back to him, gesturing to the place as she slowly walked to her bathroom, "Does it look like I've got anybody to tell?"

She shut the door behind her, dropping the towel onto the floor. She ignored the purple bruises on her midsection that stood out in the mirror, even with the steam. She pulled the plug on the water in the tub, watching it drain gloomily. She heard Leonardo from outside her door, voice raised and near, "You're in the public eye, aren't you? You've got your own gym with people training here, you're popular in your promotion, if you tried to-"

Jude let out a humorless laugh, cutting him off as she sat on the toilet and pulled underwear up her legs. "They pay me to fight people, Leonard. They don't pay me to hear what I have to say, much less to listen to my experiences about being trained by a seven-foot-tall mutant turtle."

"Did you just call me _Leonard?"_ He sounded upset, but with a hint of humor in his voice even as it touched upper octaves.

"Not sure why you're complaining," She joked, "I would've figured 'Leonard' would be an improvement on 'dirtbag.'"

After throwing on a tank top, she was dragging cutoff shorts up her legs, straightening out the ends over tattooed thighs. Inked into the skin, barely a year old, was a jagged tribal pattern that wrapped around her left thigh, along with a pair of boxing gloves and Roman numerals of the date she won her first boxing match. On her right thigh was a picturesque gargoyle coiling along the muscles, and they flexed as she left the bathroom, stretching her arms over her head.

Leonardo watched her walk by, squinting at her, "If you don't feel like calling me by my full name, it's Leo. Not Leonard or dirtbag. Leo."

Jude hiked herself up to sit on the counter, opening up the cabinets to pull out two mugs. "You want coffee, Leonard?"

She heard an exaggerated exhale, before he said, striding over to the barstools on the other side of the island, "Tea, please."

She turned her coffeemaker on, sliding off the counter and unhooking her kettle from the pot rack above her sink. Her pride crumpled at how much she sounded like she was pleading with him to believe her, "Listen...I'm the last person to broadcast your secret." Her eyes were fixated on the water singing as the faucet filled up her old copper kettle. "I owe Raph. I wouldn't sell him out."

Leonardo saw how the muscles in her back moved as she rolled her shoulders, her tattoos, scars, and piercings. She looked exactly the type of person Raph would fall in with, physically. He rested his forearms on the island, his feet braced on the tall barstool. "I'm sure you are what you say you are, and you'll do what you say you'll do." She put the kettle on the stove to boil, and he continued, eyeing her wary stance. "I am sorry for breaking in. I hope you understand that I only wanted to be sure. We've got...enemies. The kind that would set up someone like you in order to lure Raph into a trap."

"The Foot Clan," She said, and he nodded. Leo noticed the finer ink on her digits as she scratched her neck with painted black nails, "They've been a problem for most people in this neighborhood. Everything from petty theft to violent crime to recruiting impressionable youth. I've lived in New York all my life, and I'm in tune with the young people...their influence on them is like cancer, it spreads and grows. They turn their backs on their families to join them, for a life on the streets."

Leonardo pinched a stray piece of his handwraps between his thumb and finger, worrying at the fabric. He'd known about the theft and violent crime aspect all too well. He hadn't known about the corruption of youth. "How young are we talking?"

"I've yet to see anyone under fifteen," She told him, calming as the aroma of coffee spilled into the air. "Kids who come to my gym to train often get swept up. They've got no patience for the right way to box, only the easy way to hurt people. It's a rough neighborhood, I get that but...The Foot? They teach chaotic violence, not disciplined action. A few of the better fighters among them fight in the MMA and boxing circuits nearby, hoping to gain followers that way."

Leonardo spent a few minutes processing this, rubbing his jaw with his thumb. Soon, the kettle was whistling and Jude poured the hot water into his mug. She slid open a drawer, taking out a yellow box and tore it open for a teabag. One it was set to steep in the mug, she wrapped the string around the handle of the mug and handed it to him.

He muttered a thanks, pursing his lips at the yellow Lipton tag on the tea bag. He sipped from the mug and did his best to hide the reaction to the cheap tea on his face.

He failed. Jude made herself at cup of black coffee from the fresh pot in her coffeemaker, and said, glancing sideways at him, "You're making a hell of a first impression. Breaking-and-entering, interrogation, and now, a tea snob too."

"It's just not my cup of tea," Leo quipped, masking his distaste with another regretful sip. "What are the police doing about the Foot?"

"You mean besides sitting on their hands?" Jude blew the steam off her coffee, "No...I'm not even paying that close attention, and I know something's wrong. It's either they're bought off, or they simply don't know how to deal with Yakuza look-alikes."

Leo's green finger twirling the string on his tea stopped. "You know about the Yakuza?"

Jude's dark eyes moved past him to the brick wall behind him intently, her hand on her coffee mug. He followed her gaze, to a small framed certificate hanging there. He left his stool, sauntering over there with his tea. She stayed where she was, a tinge of pride in her that straightened her spine and puffed her chest out.

Once he got close enough, he examined the collegiate emblem at the top and read aloud from the print below it, "...'University', on the nomination of the faculty, has conferred upon Judith Beverly Ellis the degree of Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice.'...Huh."

Leonardo turned back to her, drinking from his tea. He stared down into the brown liquid, letting out a breath he'd been holding in - it seemed - since he'd gotten there. "I have to admit, I'm impressed. Boxer, MMA fighter, now a specialist in criminal justice."

Jude scrunched her nose up, downing the rest of her coffee before admitting, "I've always hated that word. 'Impressed'. Can you guess why?"

Leonardo shrugged, treading over to place his empty cup by the sink. She told him over her shoulder without looking at him, and the cynicism that usually littered her diction evaporated, leaving only a clear coldness, "Most of the time, the word 'impressed' is thrown around before you've actually seen the person do anything worthy of being impressed by."

Leo came to her side, his hip against the fridge and he searched her expression as she spoke. She warped her voice into that mechanical tone some of the commentators used when referring to her competitors recently."'This impressive new upstart is hoping for a win tonight in her first match against blah-blah-blah-', you get the picture. It's premature and undeserved...And to someone like me, a little insulting. It's _restrictive._ Wait until after you see something impressive to throw the word out. Something really impressive doesn't need someone else's approval to justify itself or the person doing it. It has no limits to what it can do."

The turtle watching her felt his mouth pull a frown. And he knew that she was something different, something else. She was putting up an affront to him, and though it was small and shouldn't bother him, he hung on her every word - tensing.

She met his blue eyes, holding an enigma between her teeth as she shot him a wry smile. "In the _one_ conversation Raphael and I ever had about his family, he told me that you were chosen to be the leader because you were the eldest of your brothers and the best. Now, I don't question that you're the eldest, you are. But the best? That seems to me to require one of those impressive actions that I'd have to see myself."

She lifted her eyebrows, and he crossed his arms, his hands making fists under his biceps as he kept his cool. She said, resigned, "You don't want to trust me with Raph? Fine. I haven't earned it. Still his choice to come here, mind you. I'll still be looking for something impressive to come out of you in the meantime."

Leonardo breathed in and out, controlling himself. Steadily, he walked towards hallway leading to the staircase, deciding he'd rather leave than stand there and be insulted, "It's late."

"It is," She reminded him, and was perfectly fine with letting him leave. She heard the door to the staircase creak open, before she called, "Hey Leonardo!"

"Yeah?" He shouted back up, his hand braced on the knob.

She widened her shit-eating grin. "Raph told me you guys were ninjas. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe is there _any possible reason_ why I should be getting the drop on you with a fuckin' Jose Canseco bat?"

All that answered her was a slight slam on the door as it shut. She chuckled, coming her fingers through her short hair. She peered sideways at the bat in the open cabinet door. After a few minutes and another cup of coffee, she picked it up again and held it level in her hand, feeling the weight of it.

"I didn't even pay money for it."


	4. DAY 37

**DAY 37**

After Leonardo's 'visit', Jude wondered if what she'd said to him led to Raph getting into trouble. He hadn't come by in over two weeks now.

While she didn't necessarily need Raphael to train anything he'd taught her, there was something about how the walls hung closer as she worked that left her empty. The lines of sleep that signaled the end of one day and the beginning of the next blurred, sometimes moved ahead in time - to where she'd sleep all day and be up all night. Her REM cycle was elusive to catch up with. Coffee became her only fuel, sometimes being all she'd consume in a day besides an equally unappetizing protein shake she'd chug down in one go.

Her workouts became a hypnosis that began when she put in her earbuds and listened to the same three bands for a majority of her day. Or until she decided she was tired enough to collapse into her bed after a post-workout shake and a shower. Her exercise circuits were so notorious among those who went to her gym, that it's an unspoken rule that if one finds a blonde lunatic dangling from a three foot rope ten feet in the air to do one-armed pullups...interrupt her at your own risk. There was a sauna that sat in the corner of her gym, and that was where she culminated all workouts - with shadowboxing for three minute rounds in and out of the small box. Many newcomers often paused their own training to watch her fight imaginary opponents with a primal anger that left onlookers wondering who exactly it was that made her mad.

The results of this seemingly endless work were rewarding. Reinforcing work ethic and squashing bad habits before they started were always worthy pursuits, but the shadows under her eyes swallowed those results like tea clouds water brown. Some nights, she daydreamed about brewing tea with the bags under her eyes to amuse herself.

On the seventeenth day, she finally treated herself to what she dubbed a proper dinner. She ordered a pizza, watched one of the Godfather movies that was already in her DVD player - she forgot which because she fell asleep within the first twelve minutes.

When she woke again, it was almost noon and there was an unsightly puddle on her pillow, the telltale drool running down her chin. She doesn't remember much of the three minutes she was awake, only that she drank a mouthful of cheap wine from the back of her fridge and went back to sleep.

Jude didn't know why she decided to go for a drive at midnight, but considering the Foot ninja she saw sliding across her hood at a red light in Chinatown, she was glad she did.

* * *

 **MINUTES EARLIER**

Stemming the blood spilling out from a gash in his side with a terse hand and ducking down an alley, Raph knew he won't hear the end of it when he got home. He could see the glasses glaring at him as Donnie scolded him about the weak points on their mutated turtle bodies, about the soft sides of their plastrons being their only vulnerable zones. Mikey would make him promise and promise not to do anything like that again, then hold it against him anytime Raph needed him to do something. " _I see you want me to blend you a protein shake, Raph. But considering you went out alone and got yourself hurt I might just decline."_

And Leonardo? Ever since he got wind of Leo's visit to Jude, Raphael was itching for a really good excuse to give the fearless leader a really good reason to leave him be. If Leo came to lecture him, Raph would be able to blame the repercussions on his agitation and pain.

He labored air in and out of his lungs as he sprinted down the alley, before vaulting himself into the air to the side of a building - he braved the pain that razed up and down his sides as he dug his sai into the bricks to hold him there. He heard running further back in the alley and pure need to get away coursed in his body, as he yanked a sai out to drive it back into the bricks higher and then repeating with the other. He climbed higher as the Foot caught up to the wall he was on, and swung, parrying throwing knives away with his free sai. He sunk it back in. His brute strength saving his skin as he leapt higher, almost to the top before he rolled himself over the edge just in time to avoid another spray of blades.

A panicked breath sucked in through his crooked teeth as a grappling hook struck the patch of roof by his head. He fought fatigue as he scrambled to his feet and broke into a run. He had the stamina to outrun them, but he had already stayed just ahead of them for nearly thirty blocks and more kept coming out of the walls it seemed. He didn't know how much longer he could keep this up without help. He pushed a finger into his harness strap for his crappy phone, only to find the screen cracked and a few buttons missing. He must've crushed it somewhere in this chase - frustrated, he spun on his heel mid-sprint and hurled it at the first Foot ninja he saw before resuming his breakneck pace.

From that glimpse, he counted maybe ten on his trail. He must've been miles from the main sewer pipes that led to the lair. Raphael was getting desperate. He leapt from building to building, flipping over air conditioning units and ricocheting tranquilizer darts off his shell. His lungs felt like too-full balloons ready to burst. His eyes stung in his skull from the neon signs of Chinatown burning into them.

Somewhere before long-jumping from one apartment complex to the top of a restaurant, he got tired of running. Raph short-changed himself on the power of the jump, almost breaking the fire escape under his weight as he landed. He vaulted himself over the railing, rolling over the top of a dumpster and breaking into a run down the alley away from the prying lights of the street. He didn't get four strides in before his hands hit a brick wall in front of him, bringing everything to a deadstop.

He looked up desperately at what he guessed was a thirty foot high wall. His arms ached like a young toddler's would after tugging on a parent's leg for too long. His gasping breaths ended in animalistic grunts, pounding his fists against the wall in hopeless anger. He just didn't have the gasoline in him to climb that. He heard the Foot catching up to him, shouts on the rooftops and the clanging of them coming down the fire escape.

Raph put his shell to that wall, working to find his center - any center of his being that he could hold onto to slow his breathing. He thought about his brothers, his father, their faces urging him to come home safe. To come home at all. He took a sai in each hand, his fingers finding familiar grips between the prongs and spun them in and out as he heard the metallic unsheathing of katanas, the fitting of arrows to bows.

Car headlights flashed on behind a small growing crowd of Foot straight down the alley, and Raph was blinded for a second, raising a hand to shield his eyes. A high whistle rang out, and Raph barely saw a silhouette appear on top of the car against the dimmer lights of the street behind it.

He heard shoes hitting metal as the silhouette leapt from the roof of the car to the hood. A boot kicked off the front and the headlights shone on a head of short blond hair in midair, a whoop piercing the night. Raph's lips spread into a wide grin as a sharp _crack_ sounded when his reinforcement's knee nailed the head of a Foot Clan ninja.

And why should he let Jude have all the fun? Raphael flipped his sai into the guard position with the blades running along the inside of his forearms, and decked the first two Foot Clan he got his hands on with the blunt end of the sai hilts, a hot satisfaction coiling in his gut. A fast burning pain ripped into his side as an arrow sliced the softer skin between the ends of his plastrons and his shell - the same place he'd been hurt earlier. The wound reopened, Raph grit his teeth and instinctively rolled out of the way of a few more, until he sprang up and clotheslined the archer.

A battle cry reached his ears from behind, but just as he was whirling around to meet the attacker, he saw Jude slide between them. She caught him in his run, hooking an arm under the ninja's armpit and throwing him over her back, onto the ground in a moaning pile. She didn't stop there - she stepped back and soccer-kicked the guy in a place that coaxed a cringe out of Raph.

"Nice of you to come by," Raph quipped, elbowing an incoming Foot in the nose with his massive arm.

Jude permitted only a withering glare at him, before ducking under a punch and automatically straightening with a savage uppercut. "Don't talk to me, I'm mad at you."

"I know," Raph figured that, before pausing to pick up a henchman mid-charge and roughly slam him into the pavement. He managed a mildly apologetic glance. "M'sorry I haven't-"

He spotted another archer about to fire, diving into Jude and taking them both to the ground, him shifting onto his side so his taped shell would shield them. Jude protested with a frustrated noise from the back of her throat, but the archer was still shooting. Raph tucked in his legs, keeping his grip on her as she demanded, "Get _off_ me, you -"

"Look, I know you're upset," Raph's lips curled into a smirk, the toothpick in his teeth taunting her and tempting her to lean in to bite off the end. Just to see the look on his face. "But I'm just glad t'see ya."

"Be glad after we're done here," She told him sternly, rolling her eyes.

He held her tight, rolling them both over and over towards the archer until they were at his feet. Raph let her go, taking off to guard against three men wielding katanas. Jude stayed on the ground for a moment, spinning on her shoulder to whip out the archer's legs from under him. When he fell on his back, she caught his arm and wrapped her muscled thighs around the shoulder socket, holding his wrist to her chest. He rapped his knuckles hard against her cheek, but it didn't last. She lifted her hips to the sky, a sickening crackling that Raph both heard and saw signaled to the remaining foot that his bow arm had been effectively dislocated. The ones Raphael was fighting halted in the attack, staring blankly at their comrade.

Jude shoved the thug away and got to her feet, standing by Raph. There were two left, and the rest of their force was on the ground in heaps of bleeding, groaning, and complaining Foot Clan. Jude was bleeding from a gash her arm that she knew had grit in it, and her cheek was swelling. Raphael felt the warmth oozing from the cut the arrow had left earlier, but was otherwise fine, save for the dull ache from his limbs.

Before Raph could finish them off, Jude wheezed at the two remaining Foot while holding her side, "If you two are planning on coming at us, I'm going to get in that car," She jerked her chin in the direction of the headlights, and Raph suddenly looked at her when she swore, "And I will happily _run you the fuck over._ And then I'm gonna back up...and run you over again." She licked her chapped lips, narrowing her eyes at them, "And then I'm gonna back up, and run your asses over a third time. Let there be no confusion here: I _am not_ in the mood for this."

Raphael's eyes widened at the chick, and he let out a short exhale through his nostrils. She meant that. She actually meant that. He felt a warmth in his chest, something smug and satisfied purring there. But also a seed of shame planted itself in his spine.

Jude stared at them, and they stared at her. Maybe ten seconds or ten minutes went by, Raph couldn't tell. But after that time, she said, "Smart. Now get lost while I still have some patience. Follow, and I lose what I've got left."

And to Raphael's bewilderment, the two swordsmen slowly sheathed their blades and rallied the conscious Foot to leave. They helped a man on each arm, the force retreating through a tributary alley to the left of Jude's car and disappearing into the night. Jude glared around at the rooftops quickly, making damn sure that nobody was watching.

"Get in the car," She said, and he opened his mouth to say something, apologize maybe, but she silenced him with a sharp look.

"Fine." He resigned, shuffling to her car.

Raphael opened the door and waited, his eyes on her. He watched as she walked around, muttering something under her breath. She took handfuls of her hair, crouching for a moment before straightening again as she noticed him waiting and strided with a purpose towards the drivers side. But not before she saw…

"Son of a bitch!" She shouted as she bent in front of her smashed headlight, which buzzed weakly with short bursts of sparks.

Raphael hazarded a step towards her, promising lowly, "I'll pay for that. Getcha a new one."

At his voice, she advanced on him and pointed a black-nailed finger, "No, no, no - you wanna pay me back for this? Tell me why you haven't been around."

The blaring of police sirens in the distance, maybe four blocks out, heightened her nervosa. He got himself into the back seat, shutting the door behind his feet and lying low as she slid into the driver's seat.

Jude threw the car in reverse and twisted in her seat, glaring over her shoulder as she backed the car out of the alley. She waited for a truck to go by, tapping her toe against the gas pedal until she was clear - then she whipped it out and shifted to drive, attempting to go as casually as possible when she saw the red and blue flashing of squad cars rounding the corner to wheel into the alley she'd just left. She huffed a sigh of relief.

"We're good, you can sit up," She told him, and he heaved himself up into the back seat, his shell laid gently against the door and his legs stretched out as much as he could.

Raphael spent the next few minutes of silence catching his breath gradually, checking at his side wound. The regenerative mutagen in his blood was already at work to clot it, rejecting the grit in the cut and as he swiped a finger over the edges he could collect some of it. He glanced up to see that she was eyeing him in the rear view mirror, and he saw that a shiner was rearing itself onto her cheek.

"You look like hell," She noted, and she caught a glint of his uneven teeth.

His deep baritone was always gravellier after a fight, she'd picked that up when they sparred together, "So do you."

Jude let out a airy laugh, combing a hand through her short hair and broke up the tangles. "You gonna tell me why you haven't been by yet?"

Anyone else and he might've been an ass, ignored her, and just told her where she could drop him off so he could get home. He was thinking about going that route, until he saw her chewing her lip ring, the muscles in her face tightening, and the hand on the wheel drumming. Raph had always been good at 'reading' a person. Of his brothers, he was the most attuned into emotion - be they commendable or tragic, and yet, it still astounded him at how she looked to him now.

She'd been worried about him. She'd actually been worried about him. It was about the same time he was realizing that that he noticed the shadows under her eyes and the way the muscles in her arms coiled when she turned the wheel this way or that. Like she'd done nothing but train and wait to hear from him. Raphael felt the post-fight high leave him, and a boiling guilt replaced it.

She scowled, and it hit him that he'd spent all that time without saying anything, "Dammit, Raph. I mean, I saved your green ass - I think I deserve an answer." He listened to how her breath rolled in her dry throat as she exhaled. "I don't know, maybe I don't. So far, it's just been you helping me. Maybe I just keep taking and I'm asking too much-"

"That ain't true," Raph interjected harshly, his head inclining towards her, "This has been a two-way street since it started, so don't. You've been helpin' me too."

"With _what_?" Jude interrogated, a hand in the air. Raph's mouth popped open when he saw her eyes shining in the mirror. "I was mourning my dad by doing the _exact same damn_ thing that killed him! How sick is that? Look at me - I'm a self-destructive, waste of a person, Raphael. What could I possibly be helping you with?"

"You're describin' both of us, Jude," Raph told her lowly, and watched her chest expand and contract as she drove, "When Shredder nearly killed my dad and took my brothers, I...I ran right at him and got my ass kicked, okay? Me! I got my ass kicked trying to make up for screwin' up that bad. Don't sound much different from what you were doing. But'cha know what? We stopped. We both stopped. You stopped smoking and I stopped jumpin' into things I couldn't finish."

A sharp stab of pain in his side reminded him. "Well...I thought I did. Listen, why I was gone so long... I just needed time after…" He trailed off and she raised her darker blonde eyebrows.

"...after what?" She asked, forcing herself to be patient. He got quiet again, hanging his head over his lap and glaring at his hands, stained with his own blood. "Let's try something else. Why were the Foot chasing you?"

"Well, they hate us as it is," Raph reminded her, "But...they were dealin' drugs and chemical weapons. I was tracking where it was going, then getting rid of it all when I found it." Dread pooled in her chest, a plate of ice where otherwise she was warm. "Tonight, I found three crates packed full in a Foot warehouse along with a lotta guns they wanted'ta distribute. I got rid of it and ran. They came aft'a me."

"Jesus H. Christ, Raphael," Jude said, exasperated.

"It had to happen," He insisted, "The stuff in those crates would've screwed up New York-"

"-I don't doubt that. I'm glad you did it," She agreed, and then after a beat, she inferred, "So you were busy doing some good. I get that."

"Not exactly," He admitted, watching her expression in the mirror as he said, "Leo was 'sposed to do it, but, uh...I volunteered. After keeping this," He gestured between them, "A secret, I had to do some amendin', I guess."

"I should've known he'd be upset with you," She said, before giving a small confession of her own, "I think I trampled his pride a bit."

"Why?" Raph asked, fighting a curious smile, "What'd you say to him? It's been a while since he was _that_ angry, y'know?"

"I told him that I wasn't impressed by him," She said flatly, gently plying the swollen skin on her cheek in the rear view once they got to a red light, wincing as she did. "He's not the best to me."

He thought about that. All his life, he'd been rather offended by the idea that Leonardo was better than him. He was the strongest. He could last the longest in any fight. He was bigger, tougher and meaner than Leonardo...but maybe that was the reason Leo was better than him. His brother was smaller, swifter...more diplomatic. And he was better at being kind than Raphael was...Raph was plenty kind, but he often didn't know how to show that he wanted to be.

When he was a tinier turtle, he often had trouble expressing himself because he quickly got frustrated when his tongue moved faster than his brain. Think before you speak was the mantra Splinter drilled into him to remedy this. So he thought about it, his gaze dropping down to his bloodstained hands.

And then he spoke, "I didn't come by all that time because of Leonardo."

He watched her reaction in the mirror and from what he could see of the side of her face. She blinked a few times, confusion mixing with concern in weird ways he'd never seen on anyone before. "What do you mean, 'because of Leonardo'?"

"He visited ya," Raph scrubbed the back of his hand over his face, trying to hold back the embarrassment. "Listen, I'm not proud'a this, so...don't say anythin' till I'm finished, okay?"

Jude pulled the car into a dark alley only illuminated slightly by the encroachment of the New York street lights. She turned the car off and locked the door, then reclined her seat, the back of it just over his legs. Jude flipped onto her side, her head propped up by her elbow and she raised her eyebrows for him to continue. "Fire away."

Raphael figured it would've been much easier for him to say what he needed to say without her eyes on him. But he appreciated her pulling over to listen better, so he would have to endure in silence. "So...uhm. Remember when I told ya that he was picked to be leader over me?"

She nodded.

"Well...I've always had this feeling like...like I'll always be second choice."

A dark rumbling overhead signaled thunder, and soon, the soft pattering of a light rain were falling onto the car. Jude understood that feeling, being second best. She didn't have any brothers or sisters to compete with, but she had more than her fair share of athletic rivals. Some were better than her, some weren't. She just had to train harder and hope to be the best in a way uniquely hers.

"I always figured that if my brothers and me made friends," Raph said, chewing on the toothpick in his mouth. "I would be the last person anyone would want to hang out with. So I acted like an asshole, just so I wouldn't be disappointed. Any friends that came my way would really want to be my friend to stick around through all that garbage." He realized how young he must look to her. "I know it's stupid. Just a teenager that hasn't grown up yet-"

"-don't say that," Jude cut him off quietly, her eyebrow knitted together. "I'm twenty-three, and I don't think I'll ever grow out of the lonely only child syndrome. Anyone I could possibly call my friend, with the exception of you, is also my employee. The guys I hire to teach classes at the gym. They're people that walked into my life because they needed a job, not a friend. Most of them don't even know that I hired help so there'd be someone I _could_ confide to...even if I had to make it an order." A cynical smile crossed her face. "You'll find there's a lot of people like that in this world...you guys are friends with that reporter you told me about, April O'Neil or some shit?"

He nodded, and she asked him, "Has she done that to you? Picked your brothers over you, I mean."

"She's not really in the lair often enough to choose," He said, the muscles in his cheek tensing. "But I'm...kinda waiting for it to happen. Eventually. I'm waiting for it with us, too. Part of the reason I stayed away for all that time was because…" He drew in a shallow breath. "Because I thought you'd want him to train you instead'a me when you met him."

Jude blinked a few times, the lights from the street illuminated her face as her lips parted and her body stiffened, before she blurted, "You _can't_ be serious."

"I am," Raph said, and gestured to her, his cheeks getting hot as he explained, "You're like the only friend I've made on my own. You didn't run when I showed you what I looked like, you didn't treat me different, you bought me forty fuckin' chicken nuggets."

"And do you remember what I told you the first night we trained together?" She said, creases forming in her forehead.

Raph could've tattooed them on himself verbatim, he remembered every word that clearly. "That as long as I wasn't some spider-thing or an alien, you were more than fine with whatever I looked like."

Jude laughed, a low noise from her that sounded good to him and it calmed his nerves slightly. She asked, "And do you remember what I told you after you took the trench coat off?"

Raphael flashed a white smile with crooked teeth. "That you thought Christmas colors were rad. And the great part is that you meant that. You weren't sayin' it to get me to trust you. You genuinely thought that Christmas colors were rad."

"Damn straight," Jude said, before leaning closer, whispering, "And between you and me, I could _never_ survive with Leo as my trainer. He's a tea snob, I'd be in fits of rage all the time if I was stuck with him...but I might just survive with you."

Raphael chuckled, his shoulders shaking a little. "Alright, alright. You're with me, huh?"

Jude pointed at her swollen cheek. "Obviously."


	5. DAY 44

**DAY 44**

The sudden sound of her phone vibrating against the wood of her nightstand and falling to the floor jolted Jude out of a dead sleep, grumpy and exhausted. She squinted at the red numbers on her clock and scoffed. 11:23 PM.

She laid the phone flat on the bed in front of where she had slept on her stomach. She swiped her thumb across the screen to stop the alarm and unlock it, opening the messaging function. Her brows knit, her grogginess fading as she saw the new text that'd just arrived. Raphael. Her irritation sublimed minimally. A single word.

 **Hey.**

They'd exchanged numbers a day or two after she'd rescued him to keep in touch during long droughts without training together. She wasn't surprised he had a phone, really. She was more surprised at how fast he replied to texts. He answered as soon as he got them, he must have. It caught her off guard.

Still, this was the first time he'd texted her so late.

 **Hey yourself. Can't sleep?** She laid her head to the side of it and closed her eyes, counting on the screen lighting up to show his reply.

It worked, but the temptation to go back to sleep was certainly strong, so she flipped over and sat up. She didn't want to accidentally fall asleep on him. She read the text:

 **Nope. Didn't wake you up, did I?**

She rubbed her eye, arcing her back until it cracked. He couldn't sleep. She had actually managed decent sleep the past few nights. She rested her back against the cold wall where her headboard used to be. **Yeah, but it's fine. Something on your mind?**

His response was fast, and predictable to her. **No, no. Go back to sleep, I got it.**

She shook her head, her fingertips going to work on a practiced reaction to the few times he'd texted her first, then - probably thinking he was bothering her or losing his nerve - called off her questions. **Talk to me. I'm up. What's keeping you awake?**

She hadn't expected him to rapid-fire another reply, but the time after she asked that still surprised her. She shot him another text after she tracked ten full minutes on the clock, to make sure: **Raph? You there?**

To that, he responded within seconds. **Here.**

She scratched at her neck, reaching over to flick the nightstand lamp on and blinking away from the light with a wince as her eyes adjusted. She tapped out her earlier question again, her finger over the send button for a second before adding: **It's me, Raph. Whatever it is, just tell me.**

Another wait. He never hesitated to answer like this. It unnerved her slightly and she hoped that whatever was bugging the turtle was something she could help with. When he did text back five minutes later, she imagined his words with his voice: **Okay. Tomorrow's my birthday. Don't know shit about being nineteen.**

Jude's eyes widened, scraping a hand over her eyes and letting out a tired laugh. He had her thinking it was something terrible, like the Foot or worse. Jesus. She checked the calendar on her phone. April fourth was tomorrow. She smirked. She had him figured for an Aries.

 **And you think me, with my infinite wisdom, would be good for advice?**

A speedy reply. **You were 19 too, smartass. Said you're 23 now. Four years ago, you were 19.**

Jude rolled her eyes. **Thanks for reminding me of my age, Raph. You're a sweetheart.**

And she could hear his sarcasm. **I try. But any advice from then?**

She thought back, a frown forming on her face. Her eyes went to her shelves that hung from the wall on the left. She had boxing championship belts up there, replicas of the first ones she'd ever won. There were few things up there that weren't related to her career, and she found one of them easily. Part of her didn't know why she kept it. The black ring box on the highest shelf, so she could talk herself out of opening it as she got the stool needed. Her nineteenth year was one of the worst years of her life, second only to this one with losing her father. She'd almost died.

She typed a longer reply, and it was the summary of that year. At least, it was what she cared to say she learned from that year. **Don't date anyone who says not to worry about them cheating more often than they hold your hand. Don't believe them when they say they love you for a second. And don't you ever believe anyone who tells you that you aren't worthy of love. Trust me.**

She didn't know how much of that would be something Raphael would use in the future. He was a decent guy, and if anyone he dates in the future was nice enough to look past his appearance as she had, she doubted they would do that to him. She didn't want to think about Raph with someone that did cheat...it made something ugly and black curl in her stomach, and her knuckles itch.

 **Not sure if dating's possible or smart for me, but thanks.**

Her brows knit as she read that. **You met me easily enough, and that reporter. That's two women within a year and a half. Have a little faith, Raph. You'll find somebody.**

* * *

Raphael read that text from his hammock, maskless and feverish. He had two fans on him in the musty heat of the sewers, but he was still sweaty even after the shower he took. Honestly, he felt disgusting. This, of course, did nothing to help his uneasiness about the whole idea of dating. It was easy for Jude to find people, she was human. If she actually tried to get out more, he figured, she'd have to beat men off her with a stick. Him? Not so much.

Case in point: the hammock he was in was one that Donnie had needed to reinforce with a metal he couldn't pronounce so it wouldn't rip under his weight. He didn't know what kind of delusion she was in that made her think that he was boyfriend material, but his answer to that was swift. **You've met me, right? Big angry turtle, covered in scars, forty inch biceps, constantly fighting with everyone, generally an asshole?**

 **Holy shit, you've got forty inch biceps?!** To her credit, he almost laughed. Almost.

He looked down to his massive arms, and his lips drew down. If he hugged a girl, well...he wasn't entirely sure he could do it tightly enough to have her know he meant it without...without crushing her. He was dangerous.

He replied to her slower, watching as each letter was typed with his big thumbs. **I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but…**

He paused, his fingers braced over the new phone that Donnie gave him after he smashed the other one during the Foot attack in the alley. He finished the text, **...if, and I mean IF, someone were interested, I don't know if I'd make her happy. But what does this gotta do with being 19? Why'd you bring it up?**

He scrolled up to her earlier text while he waited for her answer, both curious and - to his own surprise - concerned. Had someone seriously been stupid enough to cheat on her? To neglect her and tell her she wasn't worth anything? Not that it was any of his business, but shit, Jude was his friend. What happened bothered her enough to warn him against it, even with how unrealistic it was to think he'd be in any kind of romantic situation. Much as he daydreamed about one.

His part of their bargain was to offer her training, along with things that he couldn't physically train her to do. One of those was learning to make peace with herself, what she was unable to prevent and what's happened to her. Another was being someone she could talk to, vent, and vice versa. He sent another text. **Jude, what happened to you?**

Which made her response to his questions a bit aggravating, because it sounded like she was distancing herself - from him and from the truth. **I forgot who I was when I was nineteen, and I don't want the same to ever happen to you over someone who doesn't deserve your time. Is that so wrong?**

He must have read over the words 'someone who doesn't deserve your time' a million times, the blue light from the phone washing his face and bleaching his brain with those words. Those words. He mouthed them, feeling their taste on their tongue. He shortened the last couple of words. 'Someone who doesn't deserve you.'

Raphael imagined how she'd say them if she were there with him, her low voice wrapped around the syllables and her eyes locked to his. He always noticed how she said the things he needed to hear with her eyes on him, like she was worried that he might misinterpret them. Like she might make a mistake and would need to correct it on the spot if she offended him.

 **No,** He typed, **it ain't wrong. It's nice. Nice to know someone's lookin out for me.**

Her speedy reply, and what she wrote, made the corner of his mouth involuntarily quirk upwards, **Nice to know I'm still good for something. Mind coming by later today, if your brothers don't keep you for too long?**

He eagerly sent back, a boyish fluttering in his broad chest, **Sure, I'll text ya when I'm going over.** He added at the last minute, **Get some sleep, k?**

He settled back into his hammock, maneuvering onto his side with his phone by his head to wait for her message. She replied a minute later, and he was nearly asleep, but when his phone buzzed, he rubbed his eyes awake to read the text.

 **Alright. Goodnight, and hey, it's a minute after midnight. Looks like I'm the first to tell you. Happy Birthday, Raphael.** :)

He felt his lips spread, the scar on his top lip distorting the stupid grin on his face. He locked his phone, and held it in his hand like a winning lottery ticket. He closed his eyes, smiling, and drifted off into uninterrupted slumber.

* * *

 **LATER THAT DAY**

He re-read that text three more times before he finally sent her another to tell her that he was on his way to her gym. He was wearing a pair of jeans Mikey thrifted for him that actually fit his huge thighs and a headstrong confidence born of a damn good mood, the best he'd been in for weeks. He just couldn't find a thing wrong with the day; Leonardo hadn't given him a reason to get fired up, and actually had made him breakfast. Granted, it wasn't terribly appetizing as the eggs and toast were half-burned because his brother was a god-awful cook, but it was still a breakfast of champions. Donatello had taken time out of his lab work to sit down with him to watch the Barrett-Jackson car shows. Donnie wasn't into cars anywhere near as much as Raph was, but he learned the makes, years, changes from watching these shows with his brother. Donnie spent time with Raph in this way to satisfy a mutual interest between them in maybe souping up the turtle van into something truly magnificent. April stopped by right before he left for Jude's, giving him a whole box of CDs and a warm hug. Splinter even managed a cake, and made a hulking seven-foot-tall mutant turtle blow out Leo's handmade candles like a little kid as his also mutant and large brothers sang to him.

But he didn't forget where his good day started. With that first 'happy birthday' over a text message, a minute after midnight, from Jude Ellis. He hadn't a clue how he'd repay her for it, but knew he should.

He slipped silently into her gym in the trenchcoat getup, and once he closed the door behind him, the chatter of the city cut off, he saw how empty the place was. He started to shrug the coat off, and he called out, "Jude, you home?"

"Yeah!" He heard, and immediately he relaxed at her distant voice, sounding like it was coming from the mats in one of the back rooms where they often sparred, "Come on in, Raph!"

He couldn't keep the contented smirk off his face as he took off his hat, tossing it on top of his coat onto the back of a chair kept by the door. He strolled on in, a hand in the front pocket of his jeans as he went. He liked how they hung on him, and it injected every stride with a helping of swagger.

He rounded a corner to where the labored grunting was coming from, and stopped by the entrance to this room, his smile widening as he leant against the wall. He raised a hand to roll the toothpick in his mouth between two of his green fingers. Jude had her hands wrapped over a steel pull-up bar, her arms straight in the resting position with her ankles crossed. Raph watched the muscles in her back, well-toned and defined, flex as she pulled her chin above her hands military - style, and saw a sheen of sweat coating her skin catch light as she moved. She exhaled, lowering herself down and then back up.

His mouth went dry when she dropped one hand, holding it behind her back and shifting slightly to the side so her torso was at an angle. She heaved herself back up, that whole half of her body tensing as she lifted her chin above that hand. He watched every muscle coil and extend under her skin, saw the beads of sweat lazy-river down the depressed line of her spine from under her sports bra to the low rolled-over waistband of her sweats.

When she let go of the bar and landed in a crouch, he shook his head almost violently to rid his thoughts of whatever...that was. She turned around, a tired smile crossing her face at the sight of him. Her blonde hair was slicked away from her face, except for a few strands in the front that clung to her eyebrows and temples. She ran a hand through it, then beckoned with a hand for the white towel she had hanging from another bar near him.

He saw where she was looking, plucked it off and tossed it to her. He cleared his throat, diffusing the tightness in him, "Good workout?"

She dabbed her face with it, then massaged through her damp hair with tattooed hands. She said, muffled under the towel, "Mmhmm. Got something for you."

He was glad she wasn't looking at him. His cheeks burned, and he figured he was redder than his mask. "You didn't have to do that."

"Wanted to," She said, straightening to drape the towel around her neck. Her smile was white and Raph realized it was the biggest he'd ever seen on her face. And it looked fantastic on her. "How's the birthday so far?"

He returned it, feeling like he looked goofy but didn't care. "Best ever, honestly."

"Good, good," She said, and they started walking towards her garage, which Raph had never seen. There was always that silver metal door in the back that nobody ever touched. She led him to right in front of it, then touched his arm, "Wait here, I'll be right back."

She turned; walking back the other way to the staircase to go up to her place above the gym. He waited, but something on the wall next to the door caught his eye. It was a huge array of pictures in a collage, words painted big above it: THE FUTURE OF BOXING.

Raphael checked out each one, running his lower lip between his teeth pensively. A lot of title boxers had come out of this place, girls and guys. Jude was in a number of them, but mostly with her arm over a student of hers or that pose with their fists in front of them. Probably an old friend, Raph figured. There were few of them with her actually boxing, but the ones that were there made a grin fight its way onto his face. A kangaroo punch - more subtle than the superman, her dad's fist held high in a whoop in the background with the label 'Jude's first knockout'.

Raph remembered when he was just a fan of hers, and he laughed to himself: this was like going through her baby pictures. There's another one he liked. Jude with her hair a mess, her gloved hands lifted up as a belt is held around her waist. She was staring down at it, her eyes red and her grin wide. Her father was the one holding the belt around her, and he was crying. It was the best picture he'd seen of her dad; he was tall, at least six feet, with a full beard and glasses, his arms still held the thickness of his boxing days. His face had that strong jaw, intense eyes that Jude had. The resemblance was slight. She must have more of her mom in her.

But there was a picture among the bunch that gave Raph an idea as to why Jude was giving dating advice the night before. She was with someone in this photograph, and he was lifting her off her feet, her head craned down to kiss him with her brow furrowed and her hands on his face. He couldn't have been much older than her, and they were both wearing boxing trunks and tank tops, title belts around his waist and over her shoulder. He had the sides of his head shaved, his hair loose and combed back by her fingers. He had more tattoos than she did at that time, a tribal piece coiling around his throat and down both arms.

"Raph?" He jumped at Jude's voice behind him, and didn't have time to step away like he wasn't looking at the pictures. She'd gotten a pair of shoes on, along with a ring of keys in her hand. Her eyes saw right through him, though. She knew which one, and she tried to keep her expression neutral, despite the pain in her chest when she realized she'd completely forgotten to take that down.

He only managed a sheepish look on his face, "I was uh...checkin' out some'a these."

"I don't like to use the word," She said, moving past him and plucking the picture from the collage. She narrowed her eyes, begrudgingly saying, "But he was impressive."

"Who was he?" Raphael asked, crossing his arms. He didn't like how she was standing: her hips to one side, her shoulders tilted, the muscles in her neck flexing. Like she stood when she saved him.

"He was one of the best boxers to ever come outta this place, but he's gone now, married with kids last I heard. In other words, he's history," Was all she said, carrying the picture over to the trash can and ripping it to shreds, tossing the pieces inside. "Doesn't matter anymore."

"Matters to you," Raph pointed out, and she glared at him over her shoulder.

"I'm not gonna ruin your birthday over an ex," She told him, walking to the garage door again but a warm, green hand on her bicep stopped her.

"Hey," Raphael leaned, his eyes earnest and Jude stared into them, searching for pity. She found none. He said, letting go of her, "Obviously he mattered enough to tear up his picture on sight. Yeah, it's my birthday, but you're not gonna ruin it. Only way you're goin' to, though, is if you shell up on me right now, you got me?"

She scrutinized him for a few seconds, then threw her hands up. "Fine…" She stood against the wall, her arms wrapped around herself as she spoke, "His name was Chad; I met him when I was seventeen, after a match in New Jersey. He had just finished high school, amateur boxing from a few different coaches and he was looking around for someone to train him. My dad made an offer, and soon after he and I began sparring together, we dated for a couple of years."

Raphael's eye ridges drew up. Two years is a long time. He could see it in her. She loved him. Something green in him churned his stomach as he listened as she went on, "It wasn't happy all the time, and we fought a lot. Verbally and physically. But he was the only man to look at me and think I was still a woman, still worth the trouble of buying flowers after an argument. So I stayed with him. After the photo you were looking at was taken, he proposed. I accepted." She sighed, pinching her nose. "I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him...We had dreams of running this place together. My dad had been retired for a while, and I was two years away from graduating college. It seemed feasible and right and young of me to think it would work."

"But it didn't?" He asked, rolling the toothpick in his mouth. She nodded. He shot her another question, "Was it him or you that ended it?"

"Me," Jude confirmed, and nibbled her lip ring before continuing, "But how I ended it wasn't very…" She closed her eyes, searching for the word, "Graceful. Though considering what he did, I doubt you'll blame me for what I did to him and the snake he was fucking in my bed."

Raph's mouth popped open, and he was still. Absolutely dumbstruck, he was blunt, "You're kidding me." She shook her head. He couldn't believe it. "He...he cheated on _you?"_

It wasn't that he couldn't believe that men could cheat. He knew they could. Raphael himself had never given it much thought, but he seriously doubted he could do that to somebody. He was ugly enough, he'd consider himself really lucky to find someone, but morally...as a man, he didn't think he could do that, no matter the circumstances. But what really shocked him was that someone would do that to _Jude._

She was so...He didn't know the right word for it. She was so...nice. She didn't judge him for how he looked, she didn't hesitate to jump into the thick of it to save him. She didn't hesitate to forgive him when he told her why he stayed away from her all that time. She didn't complain or anything the night before when stupid-ass him woke her up to ask for advice. She told him happy birthday before saying goodnight. Jude even thought to get him a freakin' gift on such short notice.

Covered in tattoos and piercings, with the fighting record and guns to make a guy shit his pants, Jude was one of the two nicest people he'd ever met from the surface. And something about hearing that Jude Ellis had been cheated on made his fists clench under his crossed arms, his knuckles itch to hurt someone.

"Yeah…" She said, her eyes on her feet, which were pigeon-toed. "It never clicked until after that he showed the signs. Leaving unexpectedly, never letting me know who was on the phone, stuff like that...I found him in bed with some girl maybe two months before we were supposed to get hitched. I didn't know who she was."

He growled, low and menacing in his throat, "What a piece of garbage."

"Both of them, just lying there naked, looking at me and something snapped," Her nose wrinkled, and her face got white as she told him, "I yanked him off her, stomped on his knee so he wouldn't run, and went ham on the girl's face."

"See this?" She lifted up her pointer finger, indicating a pink scar - faded with age but still there on the space between her knuckles. He bent close. It must've been a bleeder, he reckoned. She explained, "The girl had a diamond nose stud...cut my hand right open."

"Shit," He breathed, rubbing his thumb over it absentmindedly before drawing his hand back.

"I told him to get out, and that if I saw him again, I'd break his hands," She said, a tinge of pride in her, "Which was kinder than what my father swore he'd do if he found him."

"Something tells me I would'a liked your dad," Raph said, before asking, "Where's the guy now?"

"Who cares?" Jude said, stretching her arms above her head and fishing the keys out of her pocket, "He's outta my life, and he knows what happens if he steps foot in New York."

"Yeah, I'll destroy his ass," Raph said, with particular zeal. When her eyes darted to him suddenly, he told her, his muscles getting hot, "What? Don't think I won't? He cheated on you, and I don't care if it was years ago, I'll-"

"-it's not that I doubt you, I know you would," She reassured him, her hands slower with the keys on the door to the garage. "I just...I don't know, nobody's ever…"

"Given a shit?" Raph offered, and she nodded, unlocking the door but holding it closed for a second.

"So, what I got you is kind of a project too. You'll see," She prefaced, before opening it and flicking the light on, stepping aside so he could walk through.

Raphael's jaw dropped, and for a minute, he was stunned. He hazarded another foot into the garage, and Jude shut the door behind him as he soaked it in, her eyes gauging his face for any reaction past starstruck. She walked over to the mini-fridge by the toolbox that was laid open from where she was working earlier, pulling out two beers. She strided back over to him, nudging him in the side with her elbow, "I know they're pretty crappy, but hey…with a bit of work, they could be less crappy?"

"Jude, they're perfect," He said, walking up to the two beat-up, half-assembled, the paint chipped by the edges of the chassis, but in otherwise in great condition - motorcycles. It was easy to figure which one was meant for him; it was almost twice the size of the other one and had a wide seat. The other was jacked up on cinderblocks, the tires off the ground. He turned to her, his voice small, "How did you get these?"

"My old man had to sell his vintage Indian to put me through college, got a lot of money from it. I promised that someday I'd get us both motorcycles to pay him back. I started saving the money I won boxing, but when he died, that money was just sitting there. So last night, when you told me it was your birthday, well...I figured it was time," Jude explained, popping the caps off the beer and holding one out to him, "Beer? Sam Adams Boston lager."

Raph took it after a second. He had never drank before, but he'd always been curious. It felt heavy in his hand, cold. "Uh, thanks."

She clinked the neck of her bottle against his, a crooked smile on her face. "Happy Birthday, Raph." She waited to drink from her beer as he timidly had a sip from his. She laughed at his lips twisting on his face as he swallowed. She teased, bumping her shoulder against his arm, "Lightweight."

"Well, y'know, first time," He said, bumping her back as gently as he could. He watched as she put her drink bottom-up against her lips, and chugged more than a few swallows before she came up for air. He shook his head, his eyes going back to the motorcycles. She bought these for him? For his birthday? It almost didn't seem real. He attempted to thank her, "Hey Jude...?"

"Don't be afraid," She sang, and he rolled his eyes as she joked on, leaning into his side slightly, "Take a sad song, and make it bette-e-er!"

He couldn't help but grin at her singing, off-key and happy. He wrapped her in a one-armed hug, which she returned with a hand on his shell. "You like them, huh?"

"Love them," He corrected, trying another swig of his beer.

She cleared her throat, going out from under his arm and moving towards the boxes she had by her toolbox. "I got some parts while I was out today, more on the way...Want to help me?"

"Oh, sure," He said, setting his beer down lightly on the ground before sitting cross-legged on the floor. She handed him the chrome handlebars from his bike, a bottle of polish and a blue shop towel. He got to work on that while she took to restoring the leather seats.

About an hour later, Raphael found himself looking at her. She'd put the radio behind him on, and hard rock was flooding the room in waves. She was attending to the motor, inspecting parts and finding out what needed replaced. Her hands were sure, her gaze was pure concentration.

His brothers would want to know everything. How he ended up underage drinking, how he managed to get a girl to buy him a motorcycle, but there was one question that bit at him as his eyes were on her. How did he wind up with a friend like her? He thought to the song she was singing earlier, and finished it in his head, his humming drowned out easily. _Remember to let her into your heart, and then we can start to make it better._


	6. DAY 84

**DAY 84**

Jude waited for twenty minutes in the bar she used to frequent with her father, a half-full or half-empty beer in front of her, and she stared through the window. Not to search the sidewalks for the person she'd come to this place to see, but to amuse herself with the blue-ness of Harlem at twilight. Nights like these, just as summer hits its stride, the light pouring in was tinted blue and almost reminded Jude of when the night lets up into morning. Jude could almost trick herself into thinking she could start the day over, and when the person she texted finally arrived, she certainly hoped she could find the restart button in her drink.

She wasn't here for a social call. She was here to see if an old fling from college was still worth her time. And as an experiment.

Lissie crashed onto the other end of the booth with a huff, eyeing Jude's skinny jeans and grey tee with mild disappointment as the bracelets around her wrists jingled. "Sorry I'm late, I could barely find the place."

"Don't worry about it," Jude shrugged, drinking from her beer. "Glad you came at all. It's been a while."

"It has…" Lissie wrinkled her nose, the septum piercing dancing. She ordered a fruity alcoholic something, Jude didn't pay attention, but Lissie regarded the fighter with eyes that felt more like fingers when they were on her. "You look good. Heard about you moving up to MMA, and...well," Lissie nodded approvingly, her eyes on Jude's collarbones. "You look really good."

Years ago, Jude might've flushed around her ears, but tonight, she only flashed a half-smile. "Thanks…" Her hazel eyes dipped to Lissie's dress, simple and yet provocative. It wasn't doing anything for her, like she'd hoped it would, but it didn't, so she figured she'd be nice. "So do you."

Jude jumped a bit in her seat as her phone buzzed in her pocket. Lissie's eyes widened as the blonde actually stopped the conversation to see what it was. Jude relaxed minutely as she saw it was a text. She read it.

 **Hey, now who's ignoring who?**

Jude felt guilt stab into her stomach, and she drank another mouthful of beer as set the phone face - down on the table. She faked a smile. "Sorry about that…"

"So, why did you call me here?" Lissie asked her, her dark eyebrows raised and a tan hand tousled her bushy natural hair. "You haven't called in over a year, and you don't usually do booty calls."

"You're right, I don't. I, uh…" Jude cleared her dry throat, and she locked eyes with the woman across the table from her. "Wanted to know if you'd be interested in seeing each other again...if you're free and interested, that is."

"Seeing me?" Lissie repeated, sucking on the straw of her drink once the waiter brought it to the table. "Well, I'm free and I'm interested...But why now? You made it clear last time that you didn't think you could do a relationship again after what happened with Chad."

Jude could tell Lissie wasn't buying it, and she ran a terse, tattooed hand through her own platinum blonde hair. Her phone vibrated again, and she checked it, reluctant but curious.

 **Jude, I haven't seen you in over a week. I'm getting worried and I don't even know what I did to you. Or didn't do. Just call me when you feel like talking to me this century. Mikey says hi.**

Jude fought a smirk. She'd gotten to meet Michaelangelo for all of ten minutes in passing, and even in that ten minutes, she adored him. She adored his energy and his humor; that turtle was just full of sunshine that she so desperately wished she could have on dark days.

"Jude?"

She shook her head, putting her phone down and returning to the task at hand. "Sorry, Liss, I just-"

"-Look, if you needed a booty call, you should've just come right out and said it," Lissie said flatly, her pulse rising in her throat. "Don't jerk me around like you actually want me or something. We tried that already, remember?"

"Ouch," Jude winced, drinking from her beer. She scrubbed a hand down her face, growing tired of all of this. This was a bad idea from the start. "I'm sorry...since my dad died, I've been a mess."

"I can see that," Lissie scoffed, "Hell, everybody can see that…" At Jude's glare; she held up her hands. "I don't know what to tell you, Jude. Everybody's lost someone. Not everybody teases other people when that happens, though."

Jude rolled her eyes. "And now I remember why I didn't date you, Liss. You've got the emotional range of a doorknob, and not just for the irony, either." She reunited her mouth with the lips of her beer as Lissie gasped. She took a full mouthful of her drink, swallowing roughly, and raising her eyebrows as the other woman stared at her as if expecting an apology.

"Are you _kidding_ me right now?" Lissie asked, her voice flat and irritated. She was gathering up her purse, the strap in the crook of her elbow. "Jude, if this is some sick game…"

"I think you should know me well enough by now to know I don't play games," Jude snapped, her hazel eyes narrowing at her. The buzz in the back of her head sharpened her tone, and she nibbled her lip ring. "This was a mistake."

"Mistake? You act like you're still a player, Jude," Lissie slid out of the booth, adjusting her skirt as she stood. "But the only person you wanna play with is you. Figure out what you want, maybe you won't be so alone."

And before Jude could think past her rising frustration to figure out a retort, Lissie left and disappeared into the crowds of the bar. Jude leaned forward, a low noise of annoyance leaving her as she rested her forehead on the table. Her phone vibrated again, and she sighed in defeat. Her fingers flipped over her phone as she straightened, reading what he'd sent this time.

 **Huh. I actually thought that'd work. Whatever.**

Jude knew she should send something back, she couldn't keep Raphael in the dark forever. Not because he was persistent, more because she was guilty and on Jude, guilt was a wool coat in August. Guilt was a daily exercise in self-hatred, an age-old dance she performed with herself. She understood what Lissie had meant, even if it bruised her pride to think about. She knew that leaving Raphael high and dry when he'd done nothing wrong was...well, wrong. It was her that trespassed. She was at fault, and if she wanted to make amends, she had to reach out.

She texted him back. A single word, a last resort. **Sup?** She smacked her forehead with her palm. Jude figured she must really be getting drunk, losing her liquor tolerance - which just didn't happen unless something was wrong.

His response was quick, as if he had been waiting by. ' **sup?' seriously? You don't see me for a week, no texts, nothin' and then text 'sup?'.**

Jude drank from her beer, carding her hand through her hair. She leaned back in the seat, sliding to the inside of the booth and propping a leg up on the space beside her. **I'm sorry, okay? I just needed some time.**

It was an excuse, but it wasn't as lousy as it sounded, at least to her. Maybe he'd buy it and wouldn't interrogate her. She exhaled shortly as she read his reply. She should've known better than to think he'd drop it. **Why? What happened?**

Jude laid the phone in front of her on the table, interlocking her hands on the surface and resting her face on the backs of them. She peered at the screen, thinking about what to say - how to play it. Telling him the truth was out of the question at this point, and Jude fought the flush around her ears at the thought of saying it all out loud. She decided on texting him, her thumbs hesitant on the keys, **Met up with a old friend. It didn't go well, and while I'm not surprised, I'm disappointed anyways.**

Not exactly a lie, she reckoned, but not the truth either. Jude figured that if her father were here, he'd be rolling his eyes and asking her when exactly she turned into a coward. She imagined his eyes, exactly the same kind of hazel hers were, looking at her as if he couldn't believe the girl he raised was scared of a man she called her best friend. _The worst he could do is say no, Judie_.

"No…" She muttered to herself, rubbing her thumb and forefinger in the inner corners of her eyes. "The worst he could do is never talk to me again…"

Her eyes found the leather backing on the other seat across from her in the booth. She swirled the liquid in the bottom of her beer bottle as she waited for him to reply, and when he did, her hands almost knocked it over with the eagerness she had to read it. **Okay. And why did you avoid me the other six days? Look, I don't wanna argue with you over text. Can I see you tonight?**

Jude read his last question over and over, the blood rushing to her ears and her heart thrummed in her chest. She began to type out, **Yeah, you can. I've been wanting to s**

She deleted the text, chewing her lip. She ran her nail against the side of her phone as she debated it over again, her leg bouncing under the table. She tried it again. **Sure, to be honest I really miss y**

She scrubbed it out again. She sighed, resting the phone on the table as she sat back in the seat, groaning at her fumbling over herself like she did in high school over things like feelings and crushes. She grabbed the phone again, clearing her throat. She made a third attempt. **Maybe not tonight, I**

The phone buzzed in her hands, and after a frustrated noise, Jude scrolled up to see what Raphael had texted her with next. **Spit it out, Jude.**

Jude squinted at the screen in annoyance, scowling and finally had a reply for him. **You're an impatient asshole, y'know that? Be at my gym in twenty, and you MIGHT catch me before I clock out.**

She fished her wallet out of her back pocket, throwing a few bills onto the table. She slid out from the booth, tucking her jacket under her arm. Jude had a leg over her motorcycle and was about to fire it up when he texted her back, drawing a smirk onto her face.

 **Hey pot. This is kettle. You're black.**

….

Raphael was there in ten minutes. He didn't want to risk the chance of missing Jude before she went to bed, especially after just how much time had gone between the last time they spoke face-to-face. He slipped into her kitchen just as he heard her motorcycle pulling to the front of the gym, going to the fridge for a beer. Since his birthday, he had grown somewhat accustomed to making himself at home at the gym, but with Jude avoiding him lately...Raph wasn't sure that he should be rooting around in her fridge anymore. A pang of something dark hit him squarely in the chest when he considered that Jude might not want him around, for seemingly no reason. He pried off the cap with the sharp edge of his sai and downed the neck's worth, listening to her brisk footsteps up the stairs. He fixed her an opened one too, sliding it across from him in anticipation. An olive branch.

The door clicked open, the creaking of the hinges and Jude came into view. Raph's lips twisted at how she smelled like a bar, his acute senses catching subtle red flags all over her. Her eyes had dark circles underneath, darker than usual. He knew she didn't get much sleep for whatever reason, but now he had reason to wonder if she was getting _any_. Her hair was disheveled, platinum blonde pieces sticking up in the back where she'd smooth them down. He caught sight of her tattooed hands, shaking.

"You been drinkin'?" He asked flatly, a little incredulous. The Jude he knew made every attempt to be fully in control of her body, but to see her like this, to see her just that little bit off made him nervous. His eyes moved past her, catching the curve of a whiskey bottle on her coffee table against the moonlight pouring in from her far window - the one he'd climbed through to enter her apartment. His gaze caught a second one on the floor. _Two_ whiskey bottles.

He hadn't realized his other hand was still on the beer he was planning on offering her until she reached for it, but her eyebrows came together as he dragged it back towards him. He shook his head, putting it in the fridge along with his own. Raphael wanted some answers, and he wanted them now. He didn't approach her, the way she was looking at him made him doubt he'd get close enough to put his hands on her shivering shoulders. He narrowed his eyes at her, "Jude, answer me."

"What's it to you?" She said in a stiff voice, shrugging out of her jacket. Her skin looked paler than normal, paler than porcelain and he knew that wasn't good. What was going on with her?

He barely registered how her hazel eyes seemed to bore into him as he felt a vein pulsing in his forehead at what she'd asked him. An invisible knife in his chest making it harder to breathe, shaped like the hurt he felt. Raph hazarded a step closer, raising his voice as he demanded, "The _fuck_ did you say to me? What's it to me? I don't hear from you for nine days, I'm textin' you and textin' you, I come by - you're not here. I get a 'sup' after all that, and I come here, to find you like _this_ ," He gestured to her, waving his hand up and down. "Don't you think I deserve some answers? You're my friend, Jude - my _best_ friend. Don't you think I do?"

Raphael only felt guilty about what he'd said when he saw Jude flinch. She stared at the ground, her hands clenching at her sides. She nodded after a few moments, raising her eyes to look up at him through her lashes. The boxer moved to a stool next to the island and with effort, Raph saw the grinding of her teeth in her jaw, sat on it. She carded her hands through her hair, her voice somewhat hoarse, "Where do you want me to start?"

"Why you've been ignorin' me would be fantastic right about now," Raphael crossed his massive arms over his thick chest, leaning against the counter with his gaze fixated on her. He knew her well enough to pick out any lies, though the prospect of her lying to him worried him more than he already was.

She laced her inked fingers together on the countertop and looked him in the eyes. Her voice held a resigned tone that made her seem even more tired. He wondered when her last full night of sleep was. "Started with my old man's birthday last week and went downhill from there. Went to visit his grave, came home - got low as low can be, been halfway between batshit drunk and frustrated ever since, but not about that."

"Why didn't you come to me?" Raphael asked for what seemed like the thousandth time. That's what he couldn't get. Sure, she had problems and he'd never judge her for that, but why not come to him? He could have done something to make it better. Something was better than suffering. Suffering with a friend was better than suffering alone. "What were you really drinking about?"

Jude uttered a noise of sheer frustration, a burst of sound that left her face reddening as she replied hotly, "I didn't come to you because you have more important things to worry about. Shredder will be moved in a couple of weeks - you don't need to be bogged down with my trivial problems when you've got the most dangerous criminal on this rock left to his own devices. Raph, I'm so far down on what your priority list should be that I'm on the _back of the page_."

Raphael rounded the counter suddenly, and she was taken aback by how swift someone that huge could move. Jude did not move as he took her by the shoulders with callused hands and glared at her hard in her eyes. She didn't shrink back, she didn't flinch, she glared straight back into him and ground her teeth. He snarled down at her, pain in his eyes, "Don't you _dare._ Don't you dare rake yourself through the muck like that. Like hell you're not a priority to me. Yeah, I've got a duty to this city, this city that hasn't done a thing to accept or deserve my family, but you're my friend, Jude. How many times do I need to explain it to you?!" Raphael had an urge to touch her face, to slide his hands up her neck to hold her jaw so he could relieve the tension he saw in it. But he fought it off. "You're a priority to me. You're not on the back, you're at the top of the front page."

Raphael took a breath, taking his heavy hands off her shoulders. He rattled his head, scrubbing his fingers down his face in an attempt to calm the blood rushing there. She kept her sights on him, and he felt her warm breath on his chest as she exhaled. He said lowly, "You're pissing me off. You know you're important to me so quit makin' it out like you're not...you're scaring me too." He took a chance, reaching out with a hand to lift her chin with one scarred finger, "When were you going to tell me you needed me?"

Raphael hadn't realized how close they were until she looked up at him, big bright hazel eyes staring into his. How the faint freckles on her nose disappeared as she flushed, and moved her chin off his hand, to rest her cheek against his palm. He held her face, felt her sigh against his wrist. Her hands were braced on the seat of the stool between her thighs, the rest of her body tense and shaking, but her face was resigned, calm against his touch. He stepped closer, his mouth dropping open as he felt the faint, cool wetness of dried tears on her cheeks. She'd been crying on the ride home, and she was crying silently again, her hair falling in her face as she bowed her head. A quiet gasp sucked into his mouth, and his other hand rose to her opposite cheek, his thumbs brushing on old scars along her cheekbones from years of boxing and street fights.

Raph had not seen her so broken since the night they met. Jude was the strong, proud woman who snarkily told him to keep his hands up before helping him from the mats when they sparred. She was the woman Mikey teased him about, the one that soured Leo's mood when she was brought up. She was the woman he thought about when he was alone, the best friend he always wanted and the anchor he always needed. But he knew, he had it in the back of his mind every time he saw her, that even the put-together, headstrong people like Jude are likely the ones that have loved and lost the most. She lost her father, her mother was gone. She had no one else but him. And even on the worst of her days, he knew there was more to her heartache than that but he never pushed her. Raph didn't want his being with her to bring out her traumas, he wanted to help her hide them from herself. Help her forget them for a little while, make her smile or hell, even if she was annoyed with him - it was better than sad. It was always better to see her like that than sad. Because seeing Jude like this tore him apart.

She was answering his questions, both of them. He wasn't the smartest of his brothers in the way Donatello was, but he knew her and he knew emotion. She hadn't planned on telling him _because_ of him. She hadn't wanted to put him off or weird him out...Her hands covered his, hooking her fingers between his and it was almost comical how small she seemed compared to him. She bit her lip, as if she was holding herself back.

"Look at me," He whispered, his voice unused to being so quiet. "Tell me."

"I don't know what'll happen if I do," She said, her lips brushing against the heels of his hands. Her thumb ran along the length of his, and he couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't deal with her frowning like that, it just didn't look like her.

"What's the matter?" He asked, bending slightly to look at her level in the eyes. A slight smile curled at the corner of his mouth, "'fraid you'll like what I have to say about it?"

Jude looked up at him sharply, her brows knitted together in a line. Her eyes were red from crying, but they'd never appeared so hazel to him. A smile of her own teased at her lips as she questioned, "What're you talking about?"

"C'mon, Jude - you know when I put my hands on somebody, I'm never this gentle," Raphael joked, his digits sliding down her neck and he fought a shudder at her softness.

He could feel the muscles in her neck shift as she tilted her head. "Neither am I, but…" Her eyes widened, biting her lip again in scrutiny at him. The skin under his fingers was heating up, her freckles bunching on her nose as she wrinkled it, "What? Are you serious?"

"Dead serious," He said automatically, his gaze drifting down from her face to his hands on her neck and lower, to her collarbones. "You've got to have noticed how I look at you."

A short silence fell over room as Jude stared at him, her eyes darting between his eyes and his lips, the scar on the upper one catching her attention. She was acutely aware of how her heart thrummed under his hands; part of her worried that he had to be able to hear it. She shook her head, her gaze dropping to her hands over his. "...I...I thought it was just...you sizing me up, like any other fighter would...I-I didn't think you actually would look at _me_ , of all people like…"

"Stop it," He said, smiling at her despite the playful scolding tone he used. "You're…" Raphael made an exasperated noise, as if the words he wanted to say were gone, "...somethin' else. You're somethin' else and you're my best friend."

Jude felt the air in her lungs leave her body through her nose in a sigh, a hand leaving his to tousle her hair to cover her giddy smile. Whether it was her intoxication or the high of how the closeness of his body to hers, the rough palms on her bare collarbones, the way whatever cologne or spray he wore made her want to bury her face in his neck - Jude was only ten percent certain it was the alcohol - it didn't matter. She still said with a lazy grin, swaying a bit in his hands, "...You know it's the same with me, for you, right? I...look at you like that."

But then Raphael did something odd to the boxer. Even as he had been so cavalier about digging deep enough into her hesitation to talk about how she felt, at the mention of his feelings being returned...Raphael's expression darkened and he glanced down at his feet. He didn't take his hands away but they tensed on her chest like he wanted to. He faked a smirk, she knew it immediately, "...You're drunk."

"W-Wait, Raph…" She tried to stop him from doing that thing, rationalizing something she did to the circumstance. Not here, not now, _not about this._ But even she was getting drowsy, she was so tired as she was being helped off the chair. Her knees faltered and strong arms scooped her up without effort.

"Hey, it's okay - you're drunk. I'mma get you to bed and you can sleep it off," He said in a low voice, his breath cascading over the back of her neck.

Raphael's chest was all she saw, endless knicks and crevices on his shoulders. He carried her to her bedroom, and she heard the soft smack of his foot knocking the door shut. Jude felt her back hit the sheets of her bed, and fingers on her shoes as he untied them, yanking them off her feet. He reached for the foot of the bed, unrolling her comforter and pulling them up over her body, tucking it around her shoulders. Jude felt his fingers by her face and turned on instinct alone towards them, his fingertips trailing over her mouth.

The turtle froze, his hand on her chin, before he moved and brushed a loose strand of her hair out of her face to comb back with the rest of her short and messy blonde mop. The way the moonlight streamed in through the curtains, the shiny skin of her scars that glittered at her hairline and along her cheekbones, and her eyelashes seemed longer, her lips fuller, and her jaw stuck out as her head swiveled to touch his hand. Had she always been so...beautiful?

Raphael leaned away, straightening and he saw her breathing slow and slow until he was certain she was sleeping. Then, he left the room with something that looked like a smile and felt like a frown.

…

Jude woke up around noon the next day, her hair in knots and chaotically strewn about her head. Her vision blurred back to clarity as she blinked, and she caught sight of something on her nightstand, something white and square. She plucked it off with her fingers, and squinted at the sloppy chicken-scratch handwriting on it. As she read over the lines a few times, the blush flamed up on her cheeks and her smile grew until she pushed her face into her pillow in defeat.

 **Hey, I was going to stick around, but...can't be out too late with what's coming up in a few weeks. But hey, I figured I'd write you something so that you can keep it with you, maybe think of me while I'm busy so the wait won't feel as long. If that made sense. I hope it did. So here. By the way...that bird tattoo on your foot was cute. Later, R**

Jude grumbled into her pillowcase as she read it over again, but she hated the affection in her voice, "They're sparrows, asshole…" She sighed, putting the note down and staring up at the ceiling. "Yeah...big, stupid...cocky…" She smiled with a fondness that caught her off-guard, " _...wonderful_ asshole."


	7. DAY 120

They say that anything can happen in New York, and to a person like Jude who was born and raised in Harlem, that statement had been true on a day-to-day level. A guy really could just break into your house for the sole purpose of stealing smooth peanut butter because he was high and got the munchies. Jude often mused to herself about how rich she'd be if she had a nickel for every time that had happened.

When she met Raphael, Jude was not as surprised as she was impressed. Of course, yes, she was surprised that mutant turtles could even be conceived within the laws of physics but the source of it was New York. She was amazed that a city as weird as New York could simply get weirder, and to hear that a struggling news reporter along with her cameraman were covering it up, the two people who could exploit them the most - Jude figured it was only going downhill from there. The boxer never resented the strange turn her life had taken since meeting Raphael, though.

He brought the stress and strife, but that was merely the crackling to Jude's fire. She hated when things were calm and boring, he distracted her from the monotone of the day-to-day hustle. Raphael was far from a cool glass of water; he was a midday glass of bourbon, a grocery store fistfight. He made her laugh. He had made her angry, angry from a place of worry but still angry. And she thought the world of him, but Jude had been idly wondering in the back of her mind that if when he eventually and inevitably made her cry, that she would feel the same about him. She was certain she would, and she did, but it was not until the first of November.

It was not until the day she felt a tremor rush through the city as if the earth were shivering and saw hunks of metal zooming past her window so fast the glass shattered, that Jude began to feel the anger in her bones again. He had ignored her for the past few days, and now, as she'd sworn to herself it would, she feared she wouldn't be able to say goodbye when he finally did disappear altogether. The sphere building on itself high in the sky was as bad an omen as one could get.

Running so fast she felt like she was flying, Jude raced down her stairs to the gym floor and told her staff that a code black was in effect. Her trainers jumped into action, pulling people away from the machines and corralling them into the back rooms. She thanked her grandparents, who built the gym from the ground up, for choosing brick instead of wood. She jogged to the doors. A crunching that made her cringe sounded through the gym as a huge hunk of rubble came down as another piece of metal scraped a building on the other side of the street fell on the sidewalk. She couldn't get out that way, but when a fifteen-pound dumbbell caught her eye, she hoisted it easily with one hand and chucked it through her window. The glass rained down as she hastily stepped through, shouting to passersby running away from the sphere to come inside, that they'll be safe. Most too consumed with terror ignored her, some of the new folks in town even swearing with distrustful eyes but more than a dozen that had known Jude since she was barely tall enough to reach the doorknob of the gym eagerly moved towards her.

Jude rushed everyone in without argument, indiscriminately and as fast as she possibly could. The men, the women, and the children, the dogs, the cats, and one baby - an innocent, breakable baby that could not have been older than a month was carried in personally by Jude as the father helped the terror-stricken mother inside. Only when the safe rooms were packed and the streets were clearing did Jude dare join the others, and when she slipped in, they were relieved - not afraid or angry - when Jude Ellis was carrying a gun tucked into her belt.

Except one of the kids - she couldn't have been much older than legal age, it seemed to Jude - blanched and demanded, square glasses wide. "W-What are you doing with that? She's got a gun!"

Jude rolled her eyes, peeking through the tiny opening in the door as her trainers sighed. She met their gazes one by one. These men and women were skilled in their own rights, but even they knew what could be happening. One of them, a man named Trevor, said, "She's the boss here, miss."

"I don't care who she is!" The girl cried, her eyes watering with evident fear. She clutched her purse more closely, and isolated herself in the corner of the room. "She could kill us."

"So could the rubble," Jude turned and stared the girl dead in the eyes with a flat look. "I've got a permit for concealed carrying, I was gonna be a cop once upon a time, and we can discuss the matter further when our lives aren't at stake. So unless you wanna brave what's comin' out of the fucking sky on your own, I suggest you focus more on being quiet so that whatever's causing this doesn't hear us."

And yet the girl couldn't take the hint. Jude was a realist, through and through, but she had to admire the tenacity of the girl as she muttered under her breath. "...O-kay, God...Real optimistic."

"If you've got any suggestions that involve self-defense or retaliation, I'm all ears," Jude said over her shoulder, her eyes trained through the crack to the open window in her gym. "Let's do some silence first, on second thought...We don't know what we're up against."

Some of the parents, locals, and trainers nodded and made noises of agreement. Jude's mind, though focused on the situation and keeping these people safe, wandered as the hours drew on. He wouldn't be surprised. She was certain of that. He wouldn't be surprised at what she'd done, risking her skin to save others. But she hoped to whomever was still foolish enough to listen that her best friend was alright. She had this rotten, sinking feeling that he was in the thick of it, and an even more troubling one that he needed her.

Dammit Raphael, where are you?

…

Jude had never been happier to see the police in her life. A couple of officers appeared through the whole in her window, informing her that whatever that thing in the sky was - it was gone. But there was something in their eyes, something disconcerting and shaken about how they moved. There was rubble, dirt on their clothes and they regarded her with a peculiar interest. They knew her.

The people inside her back rooms cleared out quickly to assess the damage to their homes, and Jude had to deal with her own. A couple of her trainers had offered to stay behind and clean, and any other time Jude would have taken them up on it, but she had a feeling that she would be getting a visitor soon. And boy, did he have explaining to do.

She was taking a push broom through the front half of the gym to collect the shards of glass when he arrived, after the sun had almost entirely disappeared. It was nearly nighttime, orange streaks across the sky broken up by the skyscrapers. Jude had changed into a pair of sanded-in jeans, a black tank top that left her arms free to clean and her bangs were pinned back away from her face so that when he appeared behind her, she could glare at him unobstructed by her hair. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the broom, and she leaned on it as he stared back at her. But there wasn't sheepishness like the last time he'd ignored her, or shame. He was confident, relieved, and proud.

Raphael looked away first, taking in the damage and the glass, the rubble in front of the door. "Want some help?"

"If you talk while you work," Jude said tightly, moving past him with the broom. She heard his heavy footfalls move towards the door, "Start talking."

Raphael inhaled softly through his nose, preparing himself. He bent into a deep squat as he wrapped his thick arms around the heavy piece of rubble, and arching his back, he lifted it off the ground with a grunt. The cords of muscle in his arms flexed, and he felt her eyes at his back. He nudged the door open with his hip, and he was thankful the streetlights weren't turned back on just yet. He carried it around the bend to the alley next to the gym, out of the entryway. He returned to her, saying quickly before the tension in Jude's shoulders couldn't restrain itself any longer, "…Shredder broke out when he was bein' moved, sent to another dimension." At her sharp incredulous look in his direction, he put his hands up. "Look, talk to Don if you don't believe me - I'll give you his number…But there were these things open up portals, right? One of them was in Brazil, one in New York and one elsewhere. These big dudes, one was a mutated warthog and the other was a rhino or whatever, were workin' for the Foot to get 'em for Shredder. So we had to haul ass to Brazil, and had to freakin' skydive down to the river where Bebop - the warthog dude, and Rocksteady, the rhino were searching for the portal thing. But we screwed up, and I mean royally screwed up - and we had to double back to New York. Well, they had all three by then, and they used it to open a portal for this big time general to come through named Kraang that looked like zombie Double Bubble stuffed in this big robot douchebag." He took a breath, and Jude was leaning against the broom again, staring at him with furrowed brows as she tried to make sense of this. "But basically, we kicked some serious ass and saved the world."

"Basically," Jude repeated, biting her lip.

"Basically," He said again, guilt swirling in his chest. He knew he was partially lying to her, keeping out the most important part of the past few days. The part he'd been dying to tell her since he realized it existed. "…There's more, but…that's the long and short of it."

Raphael watched as a strand of hair fell out of the bobby pin and into her eyes, watched those eyes go from hazel to fire and she rested the handle of the broom against the wall. He knew that if her hands weren't occupied, holding something, she was tempted to use them. Jude curled her fingers into fists and shoved them in her pockets instead, saying lowly, "As excuses to ignore me go, saving the world is one of the better ones."

"I wanted you to stay safe," He said, moving closer to her - a few steps, no more. "You're human, Jude…you can handle street thugs and Foot with me, but…Rocksteady and Bebop? Aliens?" It wasn't the top reason he kept her out of the loop, but her mortality was a factor. His eyes watched as a muscle in her neck jumped, a vein pulsing in her forehead. He said flatly, his eyeridges shooting up. "You look like you wanna deck me."

"Real bad, yeah," Jude admitted, but she sighed, rolling her shoulders. "But I get it. If you'd have told me what was going on, I'd have begged you to let me help you…and I would have been a liability."

If Raphael was a man committed to honesty, he would have told her that he and his brothers barely scraped by with the world intact, with their family intact. Having Jude at their disposal certainly would have helped matters, not hindered them. But when Raphael spoke again, his foot was forcibly stuffed into his mouth, "…Well, we weren't exactly alone. April came with, she told us about Bebop and Rocksteady, and this dork vigilante with a hockey mask."

Jude's mouth opened, and her hands balled in her pockets. "…Vigilante?"

"Casey Jones, apparently he was in charge of Bebop and Rocksteady before they busted out with Shredder," Raphael explained, still unaware of what he had done. "We brought him to the lair, and he helped us get into the police HQ with April."

"…What?" Her nostrils flared, and she stalked forward to him, slow and Raphael felt a pit in his gut. "…Does this guy even have martial arts experience? Any reason to bring him along?"

"U-Uhm…no." He said, wincing at her harsh tone as he held his hands up and started to walk backwards, stumbling as his feet knocked into dumbbells and benches. "L-Listen, Jude, it wasn't anythin' personal. He saved April's life and we thought he was gonna mug her, so we raced in and then he saw our faces, so we had to do it, okay? He stuck to us the minute he heard what we were tryin' to do."

"So you let me get this straight: you let some nobody, some dipshit nobody into the loop, no martial arts experience, wearing a freakin' hockey mask, and didn't let me in? Not even a text, or a call saying you're okay or even alive?" Jude seethed, her face turning red and Raphael knew the fear boiling inside him was misplaced. He was a huge bulletproof turtle, and she was not much of a threat to him, but even so, Jude Ellis scared the crap out of him.

"Will you relax? I had to keep you out of it, okay?" Raphael insisted, his hands falling onto her shoulders and he attempted to look hard enough into her eyes to will her to understand.

"I will not relax," She said with a fierce hoarseness to her voice, but did not move his hands. "My best friend is out there, risking his life for the safety of a city that doesn't deserve him and he brings subpar backup instead of a trained martial artist? You bet your green ass I'm gonna get in your face about it!"

"I wanted to, Jude, it's just-" Raphael cut himself off, and took a breath, before closing his eyes and saying what he had been holding in since the moment he'd seen her. "The purple ooze's why I didn't let you in."

Jude blinked, stepping back out of his hands. "What? What are you even talking about?"

"Look, I broke into police headquarters with Mikey, Casey and April because they had something that the Foot couldn't get their hands on," Raphael explained, avoiding her eyes and instead looking at the piercing on her lip that she was gnawing on to dispel her anxiety. He'd seen her do it before. "…Bebop and Rocksteady used to be humans, and the Foot was blackmailing this scientist to use the purple ooze to turn them into the mutant warthog and rhino. Donnie got his hands on some of it, and…turns out it could do some heavy shit…"

Jude's stomach twisted. She wasn't sure she was going to like where this was going, because it felt like the many other times he wouldn't meet her gaze. Like he was saying goodbye. Jude hugged her arms around herself, one around her hips and the other over her chest. Body armor. "Like what?"

"Donnie thought that if he could make enough of it, he could turn us to normal…humans," Raphael said, his hands balling at his sides. He knew this was going to hurt. He knew telling her any of this would hurt both of them, but she deserved to know. "Listen, we, uh…we dealt with a lot of this as a family, but…it wasn't just for vanity and acceptance," He hated this. "That I wanted to be human more than anythin'."

Jude bowed her head, half-turning from him as her hand came up to cover her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking, and Raphael wanted nothing more than to wrap his massive arms around her. Timidly, shyly, fearing every minute movement - paranoia with each moving muscle, Raphael reached out to take Jude's hand. She didn't pull away as he said, his voice breaking even as he tried to hold it together. "…I want you to know, Jude, that there was a moment where whatever this is between us could'a happened. It was all in my hands, and I threw it away for my family, because I love my family and I'd change if I did it, but I want you to know…that I wanted it. I wanted a you and me where…" Raphael tried to smile, and he managed a hollow shell of one. "…where I could take you out for fast food, and get you forty nuggets, I wouldn't have to get in the back. Where I could take you down the street without sweating my ass off in layers and layers of clothes. Where I could take you out for dinner, y'know… I want you to know I thought about it."

Jude still wasn't talking, and Raphael couldn't stand there and do nothing any longer. He stepped in and pulled her into his arms, wrapping one across her shoulders with his hand sliding between her blonde strands of hair and the other at the curve of her waist, sighing when it fit perfectly there. She gripped onto him, and Raph's heart pounded in his chest, sighing when she held him too. Her hands were pressed on his hips, pulling him in.

He breathed in the textured smell of her hair, and went on and on about the most selfish of his daydreams. "I wanted this so much…I wanted to…train at your gym in the daytime, maybe help you teach a self defense class or help an old lady cross the damn street. Maybe adopt a dog together." The hand in her hair dropped to reunite with the other at her waist, his fingers interlacing at the small of her back. His thumbs rubbed at the line in the middle of her back and Jude let out a sigh into his chest, her warm breath against his skin. He kept on talking, even if he felt like a moron. He sure was smiling like one. "M-Maybe I thought about joining the military before, serving my country where my skills could be helpful…Since I was a kid, I used to think about leavin' New York and going to some far off place where I could be a little freer. Maybe I'd have been a Marine, the way you wanted to be a cop…"

"You'd have been a great Marine, Raph," Jude said into his chest, her cheek pressed against his heartbeat and he could tell that she was grinning. "I would've waited for you to come home."

Raphael's eyes, which had been closed as he was inhaling her scent, flew open as she said that. He leaned back, and she peeked up at him from under her bangs. He asked, his voice slightly higher. "That so?"

Instead of answering him, Jude turned her head and pressed her mouth to the crease between the plates of his plastron. Raphael's heart stopped, his mouth going dry. Jude wanted to say that there was not much stopping them now from creating a "them", but she knew what his answer would be. She wanted to say that she wasn't sure she would have been able to do what he had done with the purple ooze, destroying it for the good of the family. But she knew that wasn't true either. She would have, she just wanted to make him feel better about it. In the end, she said nothing. He was talking like there wasn't any chance.

Raphael wanted to say something he'd heard in movies sometimes, something like Jude being his 'home' to go to. That she felt like home to him, but it was sappy and corny and he was fairly sure it would either ruin their friendship or she'd laugh at him. When she pulled away, clearing her throat, he didn't stop her. She ran a hand through her hair, her brows furrowed and he was always staring when she did that. He had told her everything he wanted to tell her…there was one more thing, but even he hadn't fully come to terms with it yet.

"It's okay," She said. She kept his hand for a brief moment after they'd broken apart, feeling cold after leaving the heat of his arms. She looked up at him, squeezing his fingers in hers. "You did the right thing for your family. I know how much they mean to you."

"I know, I just…" Raphael licked his dry lips, his eyes darting down to hers. "I wanted to tell you that…I wanted to be human for you, and I kept you outta the loop because I was scared that…if you were there, you'd make me want to be with you more."

Jude sighed, and reluctantly pulled her hand out of his. "Raph…" She crossed her arms. "I'm not coming between you and your family. Not now, not ever. It's not happening."

"I'm not sayin' it makes sense, shortass," Raphael shrugged, a wry look in his eyes. "I'm saying that's what I thought."

"Well, that's stupid," Jude wasn't going to apologize for being short with him over how ridiculous that was to say. "Whatever we're feeling doesn't compromise how we feel about our family." She paused and bit her lip. "I-If my old man was alive right now, I wouldn't choose you over him anymore than you would choose me over your brothers…And as much as it pisses me off, I understand the other choices you made about this."

"Like the one where I took my 'subpar' backup instead of my best friend, who I'd like to keep alive a little longer because she wants to fight everything that moves?" Raphael guessed, the corner of his mouth pricking up when Jude squinted back at him. "Still want to deck me?"

"Kinda, yeah."

Raphael bent forward a little, baring his cheek and tapping it with a finger. "Gimme your best shot, Ellis."

Jude rolled her eyes, fighting a smile as she nudged him with her shoulder. "Oh shut up. Can't do that. You'd be expecting it." He leaned back, pouting out his lower lip as if disappointed. Jude added, smirking with a hip cocked out. "Besides, you don't want my best shot."

"That so?" Raphael knew it were the moments like these where he first saw her as more than the best friend he called when he was in trouble. Moments when they were snarking back and forth at each other, where they were barely arms' length apart and smiling at each other as they rapped off banter and threw drive-by flirtations like they were passing notes in plain sight. He just didn't know at what point it had gotten so out of control, how his eyes seemed to follow her, but he didn't care. He shrugged as he returned her smirk. "Guess you don't wanna come to the thing goin' down tonight."

"Whoah, wait, what thing?" Jude backtracked, still holding that smile to her lips.

"Oh nothin'," Raph held his hands up, pretending to walk off in defeat. "It's a'ight, if you don't wanna come, you don't have to."

"Come on, don't pull a Leonard with me," Jude said, bringing him back with a hand on his built arm and Raphael felt his chest tighten when she did that. He covered it with a light laugh at her nickname for his big brother.

"Fine," Raphael gave in, but when he didn't pull away, he saw she didn't move her hand. Instead, she slid it down to lace her fingers in his. "The police know about us, and the commissioner wants to give us the keys to the city. April's comin', so's Master Splinter…I was wondering if you wanted to come…"

This time, Jude didn't fight the grin that spread across her face. It almost didn't feel like her face. She looked down, and squeezed his hand, then met his eyes again. "…Raph, I wouldn't miss it."

….

Jude didn't really have the words to tell him she was proud of him on the way to Liberty Island, where the ceremony was supposed to be held, so she didn't. And part of her hated herself for not having the right words to say, nor the right way to say them. But God, was she proud of him as he stood among his brothers. She was huddled in her coat, the autumn breeze whisking past her unprotected bare neck. She regretted not bringing a beanie somewhere in the back of her mind, but her attention was so unfocused on the cold, she hadn't realized she was shivering until she caught sight of Raphael from across the sea of police officers.

She was staring between the shoulders of two big officers, and while she couldn't see Leonardo or Michelangelo, she could see Donnie's face over everyone else. Donatello the mechanic-inventor-doctor-hacker-genius and a million other things Jude couldn't remember, the only one of the brothers she hadn't met properly. Commissioner Vincent had not arrived yet, and the officers were getting restless an easy chatter filled the open space as another breeze brushed through the crowd.

Raphael had this odd scowl on his face, Jude noticed. The more she looked at him, she bit her lip. That scowl looked so comfortable on his face, but not in the way that he preferred to have it on his face - but more like it was a reflex. It was default. But the moment his eyes found hers through the police, the scowl disappeared and he was beaming. He was the brightest thing there and Jude couldn't look away. She couldn't bring herself to, and as her hair blew by her face, she found herself smiling back. That was her best friend. And God, she was so proud of him. Raphael nudged to his side, and Donatello beside him stirred, looking at him with raised eyeridges under his goggles that made him look like a googly-eyed string bean to her. Raphael nodded towards Jude, and Donnie leaned over, following his gaze with curiosity.

Jude couldn't think of anything to say, not that it'd reach him - but she waved. Her father was a military man, and she remembered something funny he said about military men wearing glasses as thick as Donnie's. "Birth control" glasses, or B.C.s. It managed to put the smile on her face that she needed. The grin that spread on Raph's face at something Donnie said to him was like her father's too. Too big for his face and the result of a genuine laugh, always reaching his eyes. Donnie waved back eagerly, and then Vincent emerged from the crowd with a microphone.

The speech wasn't long. Jude had trouble hearing it from as far back as she was, coupled with the fact that her ears had been blown out so many times from fights that her hearing wasn't great to begin with. But she watched as each brother was honored, the key to the city as a pendant hung from their necks. Jude snorted as Donnie had to practically squat for Vincent to reach, and Raphael had to bend too. Those guys are just too damned tall. After the applause, lines in the crowd blurred and more than a few of the officers were breaking out beer coolers. The officer that had come by her gym after the attack found her as she was walking towards the front, handing her a beer and wishing her well. Jude was cracking it open as she reached the guys, sipping from it reverently. The day had been bizarre, for everyone involved.

Michelangelo had reached her first, tugging her in for a tight, warm hug. "Dude, I am so glad you came, you don't even know. We don't spend enough time together, it feels like we had that five minutes and that was it, y'know?"

"Yeah, man. Far too short," Jude agreed, breaking apart from Mikey with her beer intact. Leonardo, who was talking to the giant rat leaning on a wizened walking stick with a beard Jude assumed to be Splinter, gave her a short glance to the side and a curt nod. Jude shot back a short jerk of her chin at him in return.

A heavy hand fell on her shoulder and Jude knew it was him before she saw him, the smell of that woodsy body spray Raphael always wore. She sighed contentedly when he brought her in for a hug, humming into her hair as she breathed him in. She let out a high noise when he lifted her off her feet, unwilling to spill her beer on him. She patted her palm against his collarbone, laughing. "Put me down, you big fuggin' dork."

"Awww, you guys," Mikey cooed from beside Donnie, who had his arms crossed and was looking at Raphael with a knowing smirk, as if he knew something big everyone else hadn't figured out yet. Jude tried not to blush when Raph lowered her back onto her feet with a grunt of 'sorry', but she brushed it off by offering him her beer.

Raphael was doing his best to ignore Donnie eyeing him and Jude up, and one glare towards Mikey shut him up instantly. The youngest brother only waggled his eyeridges and moved through the crowd towards the news reporter they knew that Jude knew by name alone. When Donatello stepped forward with his hand outstretched, Raphael was thankful that at least one of his brothers had some tact. Then again, that was awfully hypocritical of him and he knew it.

"Donatello," Donnie introduced, clasping Jude's free hand in one of his.

"Donnie, yeah - nice to finally meet the family mechanic," Jude shook his hand as Raphael kept his forearm rested on her shoulder, the warmth soothing the shudders that wanted to wrack her frame. Jude knew from years of dealing with proper business people through her boxing promotion how to do small talk. She didn't like small talk, felt like it was a waste of time and energy - but she didn't mind making the effort with Donnie. "Jude, I'm-"

"-Oh, I know all about you, Jude," Donnie said in a bright voice, sneering over at Raphael. "Raph over here never shuts up about you." Raphael's arm stiffened on her shoulder and Jude felt blood rush to her cheeks, the straightening being out in public did to her spine intensified further.

"Does he really?" Jude asked, turning her gaze upon Raphael with interest and lifting her beer to sip from it, tasting him on the metal.

Raphael was glaring at Donnie and chewing his lip, flexing in his arms. She could feel the cords of muscle contract and relax, and Donnie didn't back down. He was staring down at Raphael, who was half a head shorter than him, through his glasses with a domineering and Jude would daresay, villainous grin. She had no brothers or sisters of her own, but she could tell at a glance that Donnie was the blackmailing type. He found the porn on your computer and had you cleaning something of his in exchange for the peace of mind that your dirty secrets wouldn't find the light of day. Jude knew from her high school days sticking up for and getting herself in trouble for little guys: never underestimate a vindictive nerd.

"Yeah, he does," Donnie said finally, but the muted mischief gave way to sincerity. Donnie wasn't teasing now; that was Donnie's brother, who had come to him with so many problems - little and small. He had been the sounding board Raphael had used in their youth to determine whether or not his thoughts were rational. Raph had vented to him so many times, but to see that his angry, brash brother had opened himself to someone else made the taller turtle proud. But yet…the longer he looked at Raph, the more it became clear to him that there was something so incredibly important he hadn't told her yet. He reached for Jude's hand again, but instead of shaking it, he tugged. "Jude, can I speak with you for a moment? Alone?"

"What?" Raphael narrowed his eyes at his brother, and Jude felt his arm flex on her shoulder, like he was willing to move her behind him or hold onto her for dear life. And he was, Raphael. He wasn't willing to let her go quite yet. Jude's confusion was only tempered by the concern in her gaze when she peeked over her shoulder at him. He felt wrong. He felt off. "Whatever you have to say, say it to both of us."

"You didn't tell her, did you, Raph?"

Jude shifted her eyes between the brothers and Raphael had stopped chewing his lip, just biting it and averting his eyes downward. "Raphael, what's going on?"

"Go ahead, Don…I'll talk to Sensei," Raph's heavy arm left Jude's shoulder, and the back of his hand brushed hers as he said, sheepish. "Come find me later, alright?"

"Sure…" Jude said back, but he was already gone and Donnie was leading her aside, away from the officers and his brothers and comrades.

Donnie started talking. It was about the last piece of the puzzle, the last thing that Raphael wanted to tell Jude about the time he was gone. The last thing he ever wanted to confess. Donnie had always boasted to being one of the more level-headed of the brothers, the certain impartiality lost upon the angry and the cheerful and more logical at times than even Leonardo, but when he talked about this, Donnie's jaw flexed and his voice was tight with grief. This bothered him too, Jude realized. Then again, who didn't feel ashamed about being called _monster_?

And now Jude could hear her blood rushing in her ears as Donnie told her about the aftermath. Her knuckles were cracking as she curled her hands into fists, hearing about how Raphael hadn't gotten much sleep since. The few days it took to track Bebop and Rocksteady he had spent in the weight room working out until Donnie had to drag him back into his room so he didn't sleep using his sweat towel as a pillow. Don told her about Michelangelo, sobbing into his shoulder about being called a monster. Even Leonardo had spent all of his time pouring over war manuals and Sun Tzu. Don himself had dark circles and raw nail beds, but didn't comment on himself at all. When Don was finished talking, the only thing Jude could think to do was ask a question.

"Who the hell said this?"

But Jude didn't think even Donnie could know what she was thinking when he did give the name she wanted. What was worse was that she recognized the cop. Don pointed him out in the crowd, and Jude felt her stomach flop when she saw him going to approach the rat that must be the boys' father. Jude asked lowly to Donatello, "…Does Splinter know that he's the guy that called his sons monsters?"

Jude watched Splinter's whiskers twitch upon seeing the man. Donnie answered her, "…Yes…but Master knows that this may be one of the few instances where we can show our civility. If we want acceptance by society, we have to act like it…and as much as you, April and Dad want to chew this guy out for what he said, we need that acceptance for practical reasons."

Jude's hands felt hot, staring at the handshake between the cop and Splinter. For a split second, Jude wanted to act on the overwhelming urge to kick the guy over the small stretch of water to Ellis Island. What irony that would be. But then she saw Raphael, laughing with Mikey and April a few paces away from Leonardo and Splinter, and how he kept stealing glances at her - and she thought twice. The boxer touched Donnie's arm, "Thanks for tellin' me, Don."

"Anytime," He said, patting her shoulder as she left his side.

"You boys need anything, you know where to find me. I'm going to find another one of those beer coolers."

…

If Jude thought it was cold on the ground, it was ten times worse in Lady Liberty's lamp. She put a cold hand on the cold railing, and sighed as she looked out over her home with weariness. Her old man would've loved this view, and he'd never seen it. James Ellis had always been too busy taking care of his only daughter, training for his next fight, trying to reconcile himself over and over with the demons of his past than to really look at the city he was forged in. But Jude was glad. She was of the same mind as the priest that had spoken at her father's funeral: _He lives on in you, Judith. He's always with you._

"How's the view, Pops?" She said under her breath, and the corners of her mouth downturned as she bowed her head. She heard footsteps coming towards her, straightening. She could feel his heat radiating off him as he came over, standing to her side.

"So, uh…I guess Donnie told you?" Raphael rubbed the back of his neck, stealing sideways glances at her from the corner of his eye as he leaned over and rested his forearms on the banister.

She gave a vague nod, and he sighed, anxiety swirling in his gut like a tornado that threatened to erupt from his mouth. He shifted slightly closer to her, and she didn't move away, instead moving her eyes to his. Raph was always more than a little taken aback by how hazel they were, how they seemed to reach out from her face and hold him without hope of letting go. He said, "I wanted to tell you…call you."

"Care to explain why you didn't?" Jude mimicked his pose, their elbows touching. On the outside, Jude did not seem anything more than neutral. But inside, she was sure that her skin would boil off and land at the base of Lady Liberty in a shiny heap. She didn't know whether to be angry at him for keeping her in the dark or hug him tight to make up for lost time. "For someone who's supposed to be my best friend, supposed to confide in me, supposed to trust me…you haven't been doing a lot of that lately."

"Neither have you," He pointed out, and for a few minutes, the rest of the world fell away and they were there in a bubble. Not trapped, that would imply that both had a desire to escape. No, they wanted to stay there, just the two of them. "You'd rather get batshit drunk than talk to me."

Jude, whether she meant to or not at first, tilted her head until her hair met his shoulder. He shifted and she straightened, to where she was standing in front of him, his arms on either side of her with his hands on the railing. She had her head against his chest, and his lips brushed the top of her head. She was much warmer now, and only partly due to his heat. Jude stood between his huge feet, completely encircled in Raphael and she felt a calm in her that she had not felt since her father died. She had a smile in her voice when she said, "I guess we're both dumbasses then."

Raphael was feeling light-headed and he was sure she must've heard how his heart was slamming in his chest. Her hand slid over the back of his, his fingertips coming away from the railing slightly and he craned his head forward, saying in her ear, "I'm the bigger dumbass."

"Yep," She agreed, melting back into him with her eyes nearly lidded. The wind that whipped around them did not bother her. She was okay, and that was his magic for her. Jude turned in his arms until she was facing him, nearly nose-to-nose with her spine against the railing. "I've been thinkin' about ripping that cop's lungs out through his teeth since Don told me."

Raphael flashed a wry grin, his thumb brushing her arm. "I'd have paid to see that."

"...We've gotta stop it, Raph…" Jude felt him freeze behind her and she shook her head, her hands on his hips. Her thumbs were pressed against the bone. "...We have to stop pretending we're not important to each other."

Raphael wanted to play it off, ask her where the question came from or roll his eyes. But he knew she was right. The New York skyline stretched out behind her, but his eyes stayed on hers, his skin on fire where she was touching him. leaned forward, his hands curled on the railing and her body against his. His forehead pushed gently into Jude's, swaying together in the night time breeze. "Yeah...we do." He smiled, his feeling her soft breath wash across his mouth. He went out on limb, removing a hand from the rail to hold her jaw. He cursed how her lashes fluttered when his cold fingers touched her skin, but it didn't last. "Jude, I, uh…"

He glanced past her, to the ground. Leonardo and his other brothers were down there, waiting with Splinter and April to go home. A few of them were casting glances up at them. Raphael huffed, and stepped away from Jude, his hands falling numbly by his sides. His fingertips curled inwards, and he felt a coldness he hadn't noticed when she was in his arms.

"Hey," Her hands reached out for him, as if she were wading through the dark. She often felt like she was without him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothin'," Raphael took her hand, only keeping three of her fingers and shot her a reflex smirk he wished he meant. He tugged gently, and felt her walking beside him as they headed for the exit. "I'll take you home."


	8. DAY 171

While Jude knew that Raphael's family of five lived in the sewers, what she did not expect was the place smelling…nice. She could wrack it up to Raphael's huge hands over her eyes, even if she had a blindfold on. He walked her like a little kid through the tunnels and corridors, and whatever he was wearing - a body spray or something else - it filled Jude's nose and never left. She couldn't quite place it, but it smelled earthy and masculine. She was tempted to turn in his arms and bury her face in his chest to inhale more of it with every step, but resisted the urge.

As they neared the lair - Jude felt they ought to after walking for thirty minutes straight, the merry drawls of Hallmark Christmas music echoed louder and louder. Jude smirked under his hands, her own still around his wrists to steady herself. "Lemme guess. Mikey?"

"Yep," A smile in his rough voice, his hands leaving her eyes and taking her hand instead.

Raphael ignored how holding her tiny, fragile-looking hand in his made his heart flutter in his thick chest, and Jude was thankful the blindfold hid the flush around her ears, but as the scent of him left with his fingers, another replaced it. Unlike Raphael's aroma, this new smell was tangy and overpowering, like fresh candy made too sweet. She whistled, "Smells like someone's making church window cookies." A pang of nostalgia hit her in center mass, and she wasn't at all surprised it knew where to nail her. She covered it up with a cough. "Mikey again?"

"Close." Raph wasn't oblivious to how her voice darkened, and glanced at her, his thumb rubbing hers absentmindedly. "Don usually makes sweets this time'a year, to get away from work for a bit."

"Mm." Jude had met Donnie for those few minutes on Liberty Island, but had not seen him since. If her and Raph were comfortable enough to hold hands like this, a swell of duty compelled her to try to meet every member of his family - which included his father, as well. So far, she knew his brother was the Mr. Fix-It of the family, but she knew there had to be more to him than that. For years, her father had been that go-to person for the neighbors and anyone needing some help. And she knew her old man could have written dozens of books on what they never knew.

"…Still feeling okay about coming to the lair?" Raphael asked, not for the first time. His eyes were still on her, gauging every expression as best he could with the blindfold.

Jude sighed, and for him, she quirked her mouth into a half-smile. "'Course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

 _That is the question of the hour, ain't it?_ Raphael had spent the entire night before working out answers to that question. For one, the most obvious, he was a mutant turtle that lived with three other mutant turtles and an aging mutated ninja rat - _in the sewer_. He wasn't sure that the lair was Jude's Christmas destination number one.

Secondly, after he had come to her apartment to find her drunk weeks ago and after the conversation they'd had, Raphael wasn't sure if he could be near Jude and really look at her without thinking of how much she worried him. He wasn't sure if he'd forgiven her yet or seen her forgive herself for what had happened to her: whether it was her father's death or that elusive earlier thing he intuited from watching her, from watching how she jolted when he accidentally snuck up on her, from watching how she disarmed herself when she came home at night. Pepper spray, then keys, then at last, her .380 glock she kept strapped under her jacket and the twenty-two strapped to her ankle. Something had happened, Raphael figured, that made her so paranoid, and he was about seventy-five percent certain it happened long before her father died.

"Just askin'," Raphael said finally, his eyes averted ahead to the corridor that led to the garage where Donnie and he kept the turtle van.

For a list of reasons that seemed to materialize the moment it happened, Raphael slipped his hand out of Jude's. She tried not to react, but when her fingers were empty of his, she shoved them into her pockets and did her best to pretend they didn't exist. And that they were cold without him.

They turned a corner, and the grandeur of the lair spread out before Jude, whose eyes grew wide. Raphael watched her face with a proud half-smile. Waterslides, music stations where Mikey waved as he mixed out the Christmas songs, a kitchen that the tallest of his brothers was icing cakes in, and the ceiling never seemed to stop. It just went up and up, and Jude could have spent hours staring at the pipes and canopies like they were in a forest of concrete and lead. She let out a low whistle.

"You like it?" He asked, only half-afraid of the answer.

"It's...wow." She breathed, a tattooed hand lifted to comb through her hair.

A voice from behind them caught Jude off-guard. "I'm glad you like our home."

Jude's gaze panned until she saw Splinter. The old rat leant on his staff, his claws brushing through his beard and he was swathed in sweaters. Prudence straightened her spine, and she felt underdressed. A Breaking Benjamin hoodie didn't seem appropriate to meet your best friend's old-school rat father. She didn't say anything at first, but stepped forward and bent into a bow. Raphael's breath caught in his throat, and as he watched Splinter inclined his head, he wasn't sure if he expected any less from his best friend. Jude knew respect.

"I'm sorry we didn't get to meet at the key to the city ceremony," Jude said, her voice lower with slight embarrassment. "I would've introduced myself, but I had to get home anyway and the boat ride over freaked me out, and…" Splinter's black eyes glittered with amusement, and he shared a glance with Raphael over her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm making excuses."

Heavy footsteps went past her, and she heard Leonardo say, "Try not doing that. You'll do better."

Raphael glared at the back of Leo's head as the oldest of his brothers moved to the kitchen with a sweat towel over his shoulders. Jude's eyes on Splinter's faltered. She tried again, and stretched out a hand to the rat. "I'm pleased to meet you, sir. I've heard a lot about you."

Splinter wasted little time shaking her hand, and smiled at her. "You're doing fine, Jude. You're quite welcome in this household, even if my eldest son cannot remember his manners."

Raphael's eyes widened and a grin spread across his face. He looked over at Leo, who grew very still by the fridge with his hand half-raised for a drink from his water. Jude managed a light laugh. "Thank you, sir."

From there, Jude was molded into the festivities. She was properly introduced to April. At first, Jude had been wary to believe that a news reporter of all people would be able to cover for them, but upon hearing the story of how she knew the boys...Jude knew that the last person to be their betrayer was April. The reporter was a talker, Jude soon found out, and as April gathered from her repeated attempts to strike a conversation with the boxer, Jude was not.

At one point, Jude got up to go to the bathroom, and April huffed a sigh as soon as she was out of earshot. The reporter walked over to Raphael, and said with a frown, "She hates me."

"She doesn't hate you." He said, and attempted to find a delicate way to phrase it, his eyes on his drink. "She's just...different."

"I feel like she's...one of those people that doesn't enjoy the holidays." Michelangelo offered, icing on his upper lip from the cookies he'd been munching on for the past few minutes. Before Raphael could retort, Mikey held up a hand. "I'm just sayin', bro. I've seen Jude before, and she just looks...heavy with something. She say anything on the way over?"

Raphael shook his head, and his eyes sought out the only person that would be able to talk to her without screwing up. Every attempt he'd made to breach the subject of why December seemed to drag her down had led to stutters and neverminds. "Dad, what do you think?"

Splinter's eyes went to the bathroom door where Jude had disappeared. He drank from his eggnog and added a cinnamon stick from a jar. He swirled the stick as he spoke, "You mentioned that she'd lost her father recently."

"...Months ago, but…" Raphael trailed off. The signs clicked, one by one like a crate, and he exhaled. Something cold slipped into his stomach. "Oh."

Splinter nodded slowly, and April covered her mouth, a hand on Raphael's shoulder. The rat said it at last.

"Whatever her abrasiveness may be, I suggest we cut her some slack. This is the first Christmas Jude will have without her father."

…..

Jude was gasping the moment she disappeared behind the bathroom door. Her nails found the sink, and she bent to splash water in her face. She filled both palms with water, and lifted it to her face, liquid spilling between her fingers. She scrubbed a hand down her face, stopping to clamp on her lips.

She won't cry. She won't allow herself to cry. Not with her best friend's family outside the door. She won't make a sound. She won't let them know she's hurting. The barrier that she had between herself and Raphael, the one without which he would know her every thought, wore thin. It was a slender membrane, and it seemed like the fingernails digging into her left cheek as she forced herself not to cry threatened to tear it to shreds. She straightened, and leveled her hazel eyes with the mirror.

Her hair, recently trimmed on the sides and the mop top left long, was wet on the ends by her eyes where she'd washed her face. She looked like she was sweating. She was.

She muttered to herself in the mirror, stared herself in the eyes and tried to fool the woman looking back. "You're okay. You're good. You've got it under control. You're good. He's just outside. He's right out there and you can...you can talk to him. Right? You're good with that. You're gonna talk to that girl out there, that April girl. You're gonna be sociable. And presentable. And you're not gonna cry in here like a little bitch about your dead father and ruin it for them." She sucked in a shaky breath. "You're not gonna ruin Christmas for them."

A knock jolted her from the sink. "Hi Jude, you okay in there?"

Jude coughed and sniffed. She swiped her cheeks and dried her face with the hand towel. She forced a smile in the mirror before she answered. "I'm fine, April. Almost done."

She ran both hands through her blonde hair, smoothed down her sweater. She cleared her throat, and then left the bathroom. She flashed a smirk for April, though she was not sure at all that the other woman bought it. Raphael certainly didn't.

…..

Jude stayed by herself the rest of the night, but not by design.

April didn't attempt to bother her, or at least she thought it was bothering, Jude would have welcomed another chance at conversation. April felt that she had been annoying Jude before, and chose to stay close to Donatello and Leonardo. Leo kept Mikey occupied with sweets, and took it upon himself to keep his little brother from saying the wrong thing to make Jude's night worse. Donnie came by to offer Jude a drink, which was decidedly going to be alcohol. He came back with a beer, and gave her a reassuring smile. He wouldn't push her any more than anyone else. He understood. She appreciated that.

Raphael hadn't wanted to push her either, but like hell if he was going to let her sit by herself. He sat in the empty seat next to her on the sofa, put on the fights like it was any other night in her apartment. He got her another beer and one for himself, and the two of them wiled away a couple of hours in comfortable silence. Their backs to everyone else, Jude had something to focus on, and felt her head rest back. Her hair tickled Raphael's arm as he stretched it along the back of the couch.

Low enough for only them to hear, she said, "Thanks."

"For what?" He stole a glance at her from the corner of his eye. She was biting her lip, her hands laced around her bottle.

"This." She released her lip, her tongue sliding over the bite marks. "My dad and I used to watch the rewind fights every year."

"Shit, I didn't know-" His hand came down from the back of the couch to the remote between them, but she grabbed his fingers before he could shut it off. His words cut off.

"-Hey, hey, it's okay." Jude reassured him, her palm moving under his. The back of the couch was tall enough; nobody would see. "It's nice...I thought I wasn't ever gonna get that feeling back. Just me and him, sitting and watching the fights on Christmas Day. Church windows baking in the oven and a case of beer between us." She smiled and remembered it. She closed her eyes, and he wove their fingers together, squeezed her hand. "We'd watch them all...Jon Jones versus Gustafsson. Griffin versus Bonnar, the first one. Liddell versus Silva. Dad loved Chuck Liddell…"

"Good taste in fighters," Raphael said, his chest warm with her thumb against his. He looked down at his legs, and then over at Jude's. "...I hope you know I'm not trying to replace your dad. For one, I'm way too young and he was probably better-looking."

"You're right," Jude said, and as he started to squint over, she smirked. "You are way too young."

"You're such an asshole," He shook his head, but he was grinning.

Jude chortled, a wry look on her face over at him. "Me? An asshole?" She stage-whispered, her free hand over her forehead. "How ever will I go on? I am positively _wounded_."

Raphael rolled his eyes, and squeezed her hand. "Nice to know your ever-charming personality is still intact."

"I'm depressed, Raph," She said, "Not dead."

Raphael looked down at her sharply, amazed she would glue her eyes to the TV like she hadn't just said that. She pressed her other palm to his knuckles. She didn't think there was anything wrong with what she said, but...with every second that went by, the words rang in his ears. He glanced over his shoulder. The others were in the kitchen, a large tray of cookies in the middle, and not paying them any mind.

Soon after that, Jude announced that she was headed home. It was early, barely seven-thirty, but she was anxious to get home and to a bed. She claimed she was tired, which was half-true. Raphael knew that she'd reached her limit of people.

"I'm real sorry, guys…" She attempted to explain, her eyes peeking up at the turtles, Splinter and April through her eyelashes. "I'm just...not much for company right now. I'll make it up to you, I swear. I'll buy pizza when Wrestlemania rolls around or something…I'm just…"

"You don't need to apologize," April said. She stepped closer to Jude, and wrapped her arms around the boxer.

April, perhaps more than the turtles, knew what kind of grief it was to lose your father. She held her tight, and it took all of Jude's self-control not to break down right there. Right into April's shoulder, and the shorter woman knew. April knew that Jude was on the brink, and that was her signal to let go. Jude was fighting tears, and sniffled, her head down. When she dared, she rose her eyes to Master Splinter.

"Thank you for the hospitality, sir," Jude bowed, and then turned to leave. Raphael pulled his coat over his shoulders and told his family lowly that he was going to walk her home.

The walk was almost too beautiful, even that late at night. The snow fell onto their shoulders, lightened her hair and loosened his stern gait. They moved through New York as two people, anonymous as the snowflakes and as comfortable with each other as each tree nestled in Central Park. They moved through that park on the last leg of their journey, and Raphael chose the most silent moment of that walk to finally speak.

"...I should be a better friend." He slowed to a stop.

"What?" She faced him as she stopped too, her breath misting in the air with every exhale. "...You've been a great friend...you're my best friend, I don't get it...why would you say that?"

Raphael pulled her off the path, under an evergreen tree with just enough clearance from the lowest branches to allow his height. His eyes were dark, and earnest. "What you said earlier. That you were depressed, but not dead...it's...Jude, I shouldn't be sitting on my hands when you're hurtin'. I-"

"Raph…" Jude's mouth popped open. Whether it was the cold or the subject, words sifted from her brain as soon as they formed. "...I...shouldn't have said it in the first place. It wasn't fair. You've done everything...You've saved the world, you helped me get back in my career, you've...given me everything. Especially when I don't deserve it."

He let out a long sigh, white mist clouding from his lungs like a smoker. But it wasn't tar in his lungs that made it difficult to breathe. "I'm not saying this right...I never say anything right when I mean it...or need it."

The silence drew on between them, but not the same like when they were walking. This silence was full, loaded, not unlike a gun at all. It threatened to punch holes in their determination not to talk about other times when they had been this close. Jude finally said, "...Why don't you start with what you were trying to tell me that night?"

"You remember that?" Raphael narrowed his eyes at her. "I thought you were too drunk to-"

"No, you didn't ask. You assumed." Jude said, her hair hung in her eyes. "I let you believe it so that I could think about it, and I have...When you texted me, found me drunk out of my skull with three whiskey bottles in my apartment...you told me that I had to have noticed how you look at me." She drew in unstable air, just as she felt like the ground shook beneath them. "Tell me how exactly you look at me. Tell me what's going on here. Be honest with me."

Raphael stared at her, as blank as the white all around them. His arms felt numb and useless at his sides. His heart was a jackhammer in his chest. "Right now?"

"You were falling over yourself all week about not being able to afford a gift beyond the sweater you knitted me." Jude took his hands, which were far warmer than hers. "Give me this. Please."

It was the 'please' that got him. Raphael couldn't refuse her when she said 'please', not that he could any other time either. He searched the ground, the snow on his massive shoes. Hers looked comically small by comparison. "I look at you like…" He met her gaze, finding it pleading and determined. He found his words. "I look at you like you're my best friend, and...fuck, I suck at this. I look at you like you're my best friend, and the only person I've ever...looked at. _Like that_."

"Like what?" Jude's eyebrows came together.

Raphael's resolve broke. The tension that had been between them for months was jittering in his ears, on his lips, on the tip of his tongue. "Like a guy! I mean, Jesus, Jude, you're really gonna make me say it? I look at you like a guy would. I _see_ you, y'know." He let go of her hands, gesturing to her. "Look at you! I look like turtle King Kong with a shell and you're just…" His eyes fell on her, all of her, and his heart thrummed harder.

Jude's ears were bright red, and she was thankful her hair had grown out to cover them. She crossed her arms, and tried to keep her blushing in the background of her voice. "I also remember you trying to shrug me off when I said I saw you the same way. If you think about me and see me like a guy would, then why is it so fuckin' hard for you to believe I see you the same way?"

Raphael's own cheeks burned now, and he groaned, glaring around the park. "This is unfair as hell and you know it. I'm not like you. I ain't normal and I can't just do normal shit like this. I can't do normal shit like…"

"Caring about somebody?" Jude suggested, exasperated. "Liking your best friend?"

"I can't like you as more than a friend," Raphael said at last. "Don't look at me like that, Jude, I can't."

"Even if every possible sign says that we do?" She asked, her eyes stinging as her shoulder blades rested against the bark of the tree. "I think we're both capable enough martial artists to ward off any danger that comes our way. If they target you, I'll run them over. If they target me, you'll rip their arms off."

"It ain't that easy," Raphael closed the distance between them, his heavy hands on her shoulders and his heat permeated her coat. His face was worried, paranoid, and human. "You're human. I'm not. I can't take you for picnics in this park in the daytime. I can't take you out for dinner. I'm flat broke and you're a prize fighter. I'm a nobody that lives in the sewers. Any guy with half a brain and eyes that work would want you, Jude."

"And if I did take someone else, what would you do? Could you honestly say you wouldn't mind?" Jude countered, holding back hot angry tears with all she could. Raphael saw them, and he frowned.

"...It'd drive me insane." He held her face, and pressed his forehead against hers.

Jude covered his fingers with hers. "And no one in this world is good enough for you, in my eyes."

"You're good enough…" Came his voice rumbled from his chest, quite as distant thunder. "But this is the way it is. We can't change it." He sighed, and pressed his scarred lips to the space between her eyebrows. "I should never have gotten rid of the purple ooze."

Jude couldn't find it in herself to verbally disagree with that, but she whispered anyway. "No use talking about it now…" She put some space between them, resting her head back against the tree and looked up. She smirked. "Raphael?"

He had just put a hand on his hip, and rubbed his eye. "Yeah?"

"Don't wanna alarm you, but...someone's hung mistletoe on that branch." Jude pointed, and his eyes followed.

Raphael's palms, even in the cold, grew to sweat. The coat seemed too tight then, and he looked from the mistletoe to her. Jude peered up at him with something he couldn't place, and reached out. She caught one of his belt loops, pulled him in slow, and gave him plenty of time to stop her. He didn't. His lips parted, and as he had often, his eyes darted to her lips. To the ring pierced on the left side of her lower lip.

Jude tasted his breath as he bent, curled around her, and his open coat provided her a curtain of heat. He enveloped her, one of his arms wound around her waist. He felt feverish, like he was burning alive where she touched him - nails of one hand digging into his hip, and the other on his broad chest. Light-headed, he shut his eyes. "Jude, I…"

"I know, I know." She said. The sadness in her voice cut him in the one place his shell didn't protect. "Just this once."

The ring pierced into her lower lip felt chilling against his mouth, and every part of him tensed. He tensed like this for battle, for sparring, but he had sparred often enough with Jude to recognize her as a capable opponent. He tugged her even tighter against him with the arm around her hips, and he kissed her as if not touching Jude Ellis suffocated him. And if he were honest, he'd admit that it did. His fingers raced up her back and into her hair.

Jude had been drunk several times in the months she'd known him, but now she really knew the meaning of intoxication. She ran her tongue along his lower lip, and he drew back for a second. At first she thought she'd done something wrong, and opened her eyes only to look at him with confusion. Raphael seemed dazed, but then leaned in. His top lip touched hers and his eyes slipped closed as he timidly slipped his tongue into her mouth. His mind raced as she met him, tilted her head to kiss him harder.

He shouldn't kiss his best friend like this. Mistletoe kisses were short and sweet in the movies he'd seen. A peck on the cheek, a quick kiss on the lips. They weren't supposed to be making his head swim, and his blood sing, and his skin feel like it was melting the snow. Jude's only regret was that she hadn't done this sooner, that she hadn't the nerve. He tasted like beer and church window cookies, and touched her like he would never get another chance.

Her mouth came away from his, but she didn't stop kissing him. He had to come up for air, and gasped as she held his throat between her palms, pressed reverent kisses down his neck. He panted. "Jude...Jude, Jesus, you're…"

She laughed against his skin. "Need a breather?"

"Didn't say that, short stack," Raphael joked back, his cheeks flaming. He leaned back, and glanced down at her. "It's...just hitting me that this is my first kiss."

Jude grinned up at him as she rested against the tree. Her foot hiked up on the bark. "Merry Christmas, Raphael."

A smirk quirked his lips, and he lined his body with hers. His mind brimmed with ideas of what to do about that smug look on her face. "...If...if we did this, if you and me was a thing...we could keep it a secret? Just between you and me. As far as anybody else knows, we're just friends."

"Best friends."


	9. DAY 197

"Jude…" Her callused hands were warm on his arms. His were under her thighs, her shoulder blades braced against the brick wall of the alley.

"What?" She sounded annoyed, her mouth finally leaving his neck before it curled up in one corner. "We're hidden. Nobody's here."

Raphael's fingertips dug into the denim of her jeans as she brushed her lips at his pulse point. A lazy smile spread on his face, heat pooled in his broad chest. "I know, I know. I was gonna ask if you were hungry yet."

Jude roamed over his jaw and found his mouth, feeling his cheeky grin against hers. Her bangs brushed his cheeks as she kissed him. She mumbled into his lips, "What? You tired already?" He hummed in response. She drew back, arrogance lighting her eyes. "Maybe someone needs to do more cardio."

He squinted at her, miffed. "How do you walk through your doors with that head, Ellis? So cocky."

"Learned from the best, I suppose," Jude winked, and the two laughed under their breath, their foreheads together.

Something in how the Chinatown streetlights that poked through the chain fence tinted her red made Raphael lean in to steal the breath from her mouth. He kissed her hard, the back of her head pinned against the brick until Raphael's hand slid into her hair. Her knees squeezed against his hips, her fingers drew the collar of his trenchcoat in. His blood sang as it did the first time, like it did when they sparred or argued or laughed until the tears came to the eyes. She was his best friend. And he was hers.

She broke away from his kiss gasping, her hand over her mouth as her chest heaved. Her eyes were on his, but he looked down, breathing with effort himself. She asked him, quiet and winded, "...Why don't you ever look at me after we do that? You always look away." His hand left her hair. "Raphael, look at me."

When he did, she knew the answer to her question. He bit his lip, but in the way he had when he was a boy and he didn't want to tell anyone that his sprained ankle might be broken. When he was afraid. Her blonde brows knitted, and her hand slipped onto his cheekbone. "Hey...what's wrong?"

Raphael put her down. He stepped back, unhitched her legs from his hips and set her on her feet. She smoothed down her jeans, and when his hand laced into hers like a silent apology, she didn't question it. He stood next to her, their backs against the wall - like always. "...I'm the strongest of my brothers. Physically. My brothers, they're all idealists. They want to believe the world'll accept 'em, shell and all. Even Leo. He just won't admit it. But I'm not like them. I'm a realist. So…"

"...So?"

"So, when something good comes my way, I am the first one to look it in the mouth. I've...got my fears. My doubts." The words tasted rotten. She squeezed his hand.

"Tell me. Everything, just let it all out." Jude sighed. "When we made this arrangement in the first place, my end of the bargain was friendship. You're my best friend, Raph." She looked up at him, fighting a smile. "...That doesn't change because we make out sometimes."

Raphael couldn't keep the smug smirk off his face. "Sometimes? I'm hurt." He glanced over at her, watched her eyes roll. "I know...I'm just…" He scrubbed his free hand down his face. "I'm waiting for the minute you decide that you've seen enough weird to last you a while and just...disappear."

"And where exactly would I be disappearing to?" Jude moved to stand in front of him. "I'm not going anywhere, Raph. I'm not backing out, I'm not leaving." She crossed her arms. "I'm here because I want this. I'm so sick of living like a robot: get up, go there, do business shit, come back, train, eat, shower, sleep, and then get back up to do it again. I'm sick of it. I'm doing it alone most of the time, but you...you make all this worth the trouble."

"But…"

"But nothing," Jude put her finger on his chest. " _You_ need to chill out. I'm not gonna disappear. I'm right here. With you." She flattened her hand on him, and his heart patterned against her palm. "So be here with me. Be right here. And don't leave."

The boxer closed the distance, and pulled him down, her mouth met by his with eagerness. His arms wrapped around Jude, and that was it. He didn't leave her, even when his brother finally called his cell to say it was nearly morning.

"Got it, Fearless," Raph struggled to keep his eyes open with her lips on his jaw. "'m comin' home soon as I can."

" _...See that you do. Give Jude my regards."_

…

 **THE NEXT DAY**

" _What_ did you just say to me?"

Raphael's skin prickled with the razor-sharp edge of his brother's voice. The hallway light, crackling and scrappy as it was, did cast low light on Leonardo's astounded face. His question hung in the air between he and Jude, who stood at Raphael's side with her fists clenched and a muscle in her neck tensed. There was a rolling noise and Donnie's head leaned into the hallway, his chair tilted back.

Jude took a step and glared Leo without any semblance of backing down. "Clean your ears. I _said_ that if you have a problem with me, maybe you should take it up with me instead of going to your brother. I was under the impression that you were man enough to do that, but seems I was wrong…" Her eyes slipped down his form for a second then came back to his. "Shocker."

Raphael glanced between them. He wasn't used to seeing this kind of confrontation from the outside, and he had to admit, now he understood why Mikey had anxiety whenever he and Leo went toe-to-toe. He put a hand on Jude's shoulder, which she immediately shrugged off. "Hey Jude, let's go, huh?"

"No, Raphael, that's alright," Leo said, his lips in a tight line. "I'll do as she asks."

"Somethin' wrong?" Came Mikey's voice as he walked into view, but as the youngest brother saw the stances, the tones and the way Leo's fingers rubbed together, his blue eyes went wide. And they only got wider as Leonardo spoke.

"I do have a problem with you." He admitted, his gaze locked onto hers like a laser and she stared back. "Ever since my brother met you, my gut's been twisting and twisting and I don't know why, but I finally figured it out. Christmas Day when you came over, you didn't say a word. You'd been so talkative when I came to your apartment-"

"-You mean when you _broke into_ my apartment," Jude corrected.

"-Whatever," Leonardo waved a hand. "You'd been sociable. Even condescending."

"And what do you call this, exactly?" Jude asked, waggling a finger between them. "A friendly cup of coffee?"

"Do you want me to finish?"

" _While I'm young_."

Leonardo took a breath to center himself, rolled his shoulders to release tension. "You're hiding something is my point. Something hurt you and I don't think even Raphael knows. You've got motive for going against the Foot that you're not telling us. And I think it has something to do with your dad."

Raphael watched the color drain from Jude's cheeks. Her skin grew whiter and she shook her head. Her fists clenched tight, her nails bit into her palms. "...You have _no right_ to breach that subject."

Something reared up in Raphael, and he pressed a wide hand on Leonardo's chest, pushed him back slightly. "That's enough, Leo."

"Why?" Leo shoved Raph's hand off and he let him. His oldest brother seemed confused. "Don't you want to know what she's keeping from you? The Foot nearly killed us on more than one occasion, and the Shredder nearly killed Dad. If she knows something that might help, that is our business." Leo jerked his chin at Jude. "You see her. I'm right and she knows it."

"Shredder's gone," Donnie pointed out, his tall form behind Leo. "Karai is in jail and most of the remaining Foot are in there with her. It isn't like we have much to worry about from the Foot. Are you sure you're not blowing this out of proportion, Leo?"

"Shredder was in jail before, and I'm sure you remember how that turned out, Donnie." Leonardo said, turning back to Jude. "Well? Am I right?"

Raphael looked over his shoulder at Jude with a heavy heart. While his brothers hadn't been there to see it, he had - Jude mourned her father with every passing day. He was her hero, all she had as far as family went. She was all alone except for Raphael, and he'd be damned if his self-righteous brother isolated her from him.

Jude's arms wrapped around herself, and her bangs covered her face as she stared down. "I am hiding something, but trust me, it has nothing to do with the Foot. From what I was taught - the Foot is pseudo-Yakuza, they use business in the Asian part of town as fronts for drugs and corruption of public officials and youth, that's it. My father and I had run-ins when he was alive, but he wasn't in with them and neither am I."

For a moment, her father's face floated to the front of her mind. It was when they went to watch "Iron Mike" Tyson when she was a kid. Her dad just had a fight the night before, and his left eyebrow had a thick line of stitches through the middle where the skin had been busted open. She had tugged on his hand, bandaged over the bruised knuckles that had gotten them food on the table for the rest of the year. She'd had curly blonde pigtails then. _Daddy, I can't see!_

His eyes, hazel as hers, were bright and he had that crooked smile as he hoisted her on his sore shoulders for a better view of the match. _That better? Do you see him, Judie?_

 _Holy cow, he's tall!_

 _Yeah, he's...he's larger than life._

 _He's nothin' compared to you, Dad!_

 _Aw, thanks, pipsqueak. You're the best._

Jude lifted her head, and her eyes were shining. "That's it. My father died of cancer. And if you're honestly gonna imply that my father had something to do with the Foot, I'm going to knock those buck teeth down your throat."

Raphael swallowed, and Leonardo ground his teeth in his mouth. The oldest of the turtle brothers was the first to speak again, his muscles twitching. "I'm not implying it. I'm implying that what you're hiding is something about your father that's affecting you, and it's not his death. Something else. Something that explains why you're coated in weapons wherever you go. And that there's the possibility of a connection to the Foot."

Jude wiped her cheek with her sleeve, and sniffed. Her attempt to compose herself was visible. "I understand that you're obsessed with finding the Foot and bringing every last one of them to justice, believe me - I am too, but my motive is highly personal, and I'm not going to discuss it with the likes of you." She poked a black-nailed finger into Leonardo's collarbone. "All _you_ need to know is that when the Foot finally does rear its ugly head, you can put money on the fact that I'll be there to help you put them away."

Raphael knew Jude. He knew that she would either put them away, or put them _in the ground_. He knew that about her, but he couldn't bring himself to comment on it. He would always be straight with her, how he felt about that part of her and how worried he was about where it came from. But he wouldn't say that in front of his brothers. Not in front of Mikey, who admired Jude. If he did, he'd have to admit how much it scared him.

"I'm not going to trust that," Leo said, "And I need to, Jude. If you're going to be in the loop when that time comes, I need to know I can trust you. I want to be able to trust you, because you're my brother's best friend. I need to know what you'll actually do instead of what you tell me you'll do." He pressed her, moved closer to her. "What did they do? Did they hurt you? Someone you cared about?"

"Leo, knock it off, okay?" Raphael got between them again, pushing Leonardo back. "Stop it. She's had it. She's done."

"So you're going to let her keep secrets from you?"

"Yeah, I am," Raphael shot back, and his brother's blue eyes narrowed. "Don't look at me like that. She's my best friend. I trust her. She trusts me. I know that if it was important, she'd tell me."

"I'm tired of talking about this," Jude shrugged out of her jacket. "Leo, let's go to a bigger room and sort this out the old fashioned way: we fight. If I win, you leave the subject alone. If you win, I'll tell you everything."

…

Raphael associated a kind of stern affection with the sparring rooms; it was a place of learning and a frequent rendezvous point for he and Leo to resolve their problems. The mats were still pulled out from their training that morning, and to see Jude and Leonardo square off against each other on them made his nerves jitter- half in anxiety, and half in curiosity. She picked the hair tie off her wrist and drew her long bangs back into a tiny ponytail at the back of her head.

He had Jude's jacket in a ball between his hands as Donatello, the referee for this bout, stepped between them. Apprehension glinted with the light off his glasses, and he looked from Jude to Leonardo. "Leo, the swords."

Jude scrunched her nose, "I'm fine with him keeping them." The first smile Raphael had seen on her face all day curled then. "Unless you have a baseball bat to even the odds."

Mikey lifted a hand to say something, offer the bat he kept in his room, but a sharp look from Leonardo quieted him. The samurai kept his eyes on his opponent as he unbuckled the sheath strap, and disarmed himself, handing his swords to Donatello.

Donnie sighed as he took the swords. "Are you two sure you have to do this?" Neither Jude or Leonardo answered him. "Fine. Ready? Fight!"

Jude's fists went to her temples as she charged Leonardo, and Raphael's eyes widened as she threw punches from the get-go. Leo deflected her punches with cool open hands and forearms, confidence exuded from his form. Raph knew the tactic, it was one he used on him all of the time; Fearless planned to frustrate Jude and exhaust her energy early on before he initiated contact himself.

Boxing instincts kicked in, and Jude ducked under his arms, wrapped hers around his torso and began to clinch. Leo clinched back, albeit confused; boxers clinch as a last resort to bide time because they're tired. This was the beginning of the fight, and Jude didn't seem even the least bit fatigued. She didn't give him time to contemplate - her hands wrapped around his forearm, stepped onto his shoe, kicking herself up to wrap her legs around Leo's head from the back. Raphael's hands came up to his mouth as Jude wrenched the turtle's tattooed arm back, the elbow almost bending backwards.

Leo's blue eyes flew wide, his free hand clawing at Jude's shin to stop the muscles that cranked down on his windpipe. He managed to slide a finger under but that was it, and he saw Jude's arms flex as she put pressure on his elbow. His chest heaved as he gasped for air, and when she arched her back, white flashed across his vision with the pain that rocketed up his arm. He dropped to a knee, but not to submit. He lifted his arm as high as he could, and hammered it down onto the floor, Jude's back smacking off the mat. She held on, her head bowed forward so her shoulders took the brunt of the blow. He brought it down again, and she retaliated by working her hands around his wrist, like she planned to touch his knuckles back to his forearm.

Leo dug deep within himself, willed his legs to stand. The determination in her eyes faltered for a split second before he tucked the arm with her on it under his chest and slammed her to the mat. Her head hit something hard under the mat, and she felt warmth seep into her hair. Jude let go with a weak wheeze, but shuffled her body out of the way of his elbow strike. Her hand slid behind his head to grab the knot in his bandana, clutched it into her fist, and drove his head into the mat. She lifted him back up, and punched him square in his cheekbone. The green skin split, and red soon dripped down his face. Leo twisted onto his shell, shoving Jude several feet away with his foot. Both of them rolled back and sprang to their feet at almost the same time, Jude's fists up and Leo's hands extended in kung fu claws.

The moment their eyes met, they charged each other once again. Raphael shifted his weight from one leg to the other, gaze fixed on Leonardo's hands as they grappled. Jude sidestepped and swept Leonardo's legs from under him with a swift movement, before holding him down with a knee on his chest as he tasted the grit of her knuckles over and over. His teeth dented in, his jaw aching. The turtle tried to shimmy himself out from under her, but her fist widening the cut on his cheekbone rattled his thoughts into pieces. He got a hand free from under her and launched it at her eyebrow, splitting it open. Blood oozed in Jude's eyes, and another busted her lip.

"Mother f-" Jude stopped as another shot came her way, but she caught his wrist, the same wrist she had overextended moments before.

She flipped him onto his side under her, her ribs against his shell as she wrapped her leg around his forearm. She pulled it back, and with a strong left hand, jabbed the joint of his shoulder. A sharp crack made him shout as the shoulder dislocated, and Donatello's hands were on her, yanking her away from Leonardo. Jude let go and rested on her back, hyperventilating as the lights seemed to spin above her.

Slowly, she got to her feet, and she walked back to Leo. His eyes met hers, and he stood, holding his arm with a bloody face. Jude asked him, her voice rough, "Are we done here?"

"...I think we'd better be," Leo said, "...I'll let it alone. For now."

Jude shrugged, and limped past him, headed for the door.

"I'll be here when you're ready for the other shoulder."

….

"Will you quit being a baby?" Raph held the stapler in his hand steadily, her hair parted as the gash in her scalp started to clot. "You've got one more to go."

"I am _not_ being a baby," Jude grumbled. She held an ice pack to her eye, the bruise beginning to darken her pale skin. "Just shut it up, already."

"Patient knows best," He said, and she stiffened with the click, the staple closing the gash.

With Donnie taking care of Leonardo's dislocated shoulder, Raphael had volunteered to take care of Jude in his room. She sat on the black bench he used to lift weights, her aching limbs thankful for the rest. There was a triumphant smile under the grime on her face; she was proud. Raphael put the stapler away and pulled up the only other chair in the room, Mikey's stool for the drum kit. He had a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a clean rag as he sat down.

He tapped her hand and she lifted the ice. Jude kept her eyes down, she knew what he was looking at. At least a black eye, broken blood vessels, a cut eyebrow and watering from Leo's handwraps scraping her eye. Raphael shrugged, "Could be worse."

Jude watched him take the cap off the alcohol and wet the rag. "Yeah, I could look like your brother. Hope you guys get dental, Fearless' front teeth are gonna be a bitch to fix."

"Don't think I've ever seen anybody get one over on Leonardo like that," Raphael felt almost proud. He bent in close, his breath on her face as he patted the rag onto her eyebrow. She grabbed onto his thigh, balling the denim of his jeans in her fist. He said under his breath, "Hey...breathe." Jude exhaled through her nose. "There you go."

Once Jude could manage it, she asked with a smirk. "So, coach, how'd I do?"

"Standing game, great. Can't complain." Raphael raised a hand to her chin, turning her face to see the side of her brow. "Ground game, you still need to work on escapes. Leo's twice your size. You can't let him get anywhere he can use weight."

"Got it."

Raphael peeked at her from the corner of his eye as he cleaned her injuries. A comfortable silence fell in between them like snow. His hands checked her over, his eyes on her face for any trace of pain or strain. She combed out the short ponytail that held her bangs back, and they fell to hang in her eyes. She collected her jacket from his bed, unzipped the inner pocket and produced a flask. He watched, worry and frustration chasing each other on his face, as she uncapped it and took a long drag, wincing.

Raphael had his hands in his pockets, his back leaned against the wall as he watched her stretch out her soreness. She took her shirt off at one point, and he saw the tattoos he'd only been acquainted with in passing. He'd seen the outlines and the edges as they worked out together, but now, when he had grown fond of her skin, he found himself wanting to see them. On one side of her ribcage was a compass rose tilted over, with north pointing in front of her. Across her shoulder blades were sunflowers, dipping in the middle of her back and without thinking, Raphael lifted a finger to run his fingertip along the line where the flowers dipped.

He was almost surprised when she erupted in goosebumps, and seemed to lean back into him. He let her. Jude's strong shoulders brushed against his chest, before she turned as she had done in the torch of the Statue of Liberty. Right in his arms.

Her cheekbones were bruised and her eye was darkening but Raphael had coveted the privilege of sewing her back together after fights. He'd even daydreamed about it back when she didn't know if his name was spelled with an 'F' or a 'P-H'. He didn't know he was smiling at her until she did it back. It was one of those rare dimpled smiles she gave him when they were alone, with the red ears and crinkled eyes.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" She muttered, her voice deep as it always was after a bit of violence.

There was a moment where they were still apart, looking at each other like they didn't deserve any of it. Then she pulled him close the same time he tugged her in hard by her hips, his mouth on hers as he bent over her. Her back arched, and he tasted blood as his kiss reopened the healing wound on her lips. He walked her back, both of them stumbling and laughing as her back brushed against the dresser he and Mikey shared by the door. Raphael kicked the door shut and she squeaked into his mouth as he lifted her to sit on the dresser.

His fingers were rough, but his touch on her bare back sent shivers up Jude's spine. Her arms wrapped around his neck. They were the same height now, and Raphael felt like he might burst into flames with how she kissed him. Her hands slid down until her fingertips were over his collarbones, the upper edges of his plastron. Her kisses slowed, and Raph let out an unsteady exhale. His eyes were shut as she pulled away, her gaze heavy on his lips as they caught their breath.

He opened his eyes and looked directly at her. Jude's grin was instant, and he kissed her dimples one at a time before he kissed over her jaw, down her neck. His hands pulled her harder against him, eager and warm. The boxer tilted her head back, her skin vibrated at his lips as she hummed. "I should get black eyes more often."

"I want you here, bruises or no bruises," He muttered into her chest, before his mouth returned to hers. "I want you _right here_."

Raphael had never imagined in his wildest dreams that he would ever get the chance to kiss his best friend. Much as he daydreamed about it. But now that it was actually happening, he felt too high on her to think clearly. He was warm and light-headed, and he knew he might pass out, but if he did so in her arms, he didn't think it was nearly that bad an idea.

He told her so, voice low in his throat and sent jitters down her spine, "I want to...I w-want…" He was cut off as Jude closed her mouth around a soft patch under his jaw, and he swore through his teeth.

"Hey Raph, is Jude still-"

The sound of the door opening broke them apart, Raphael jolted away from Jude like she burned him. But it was too late. Leonardo had seen their embrace, saw Raphael's eyes rolled to the back of his head, Jude's lip bleeding. And after they'd split apart, Leo glared at the hand she covered her mouth with and the bright red of Raph's cheeks.

Leonardo's arm was in a sling, the sting of the dislocation still fresh as he demanded, "What the _hell_ is going on here?"


	10. DAY 198 - CONTINUED

"Are you kidding me?" Leonardo's eyes widened as Jude bent to pick up her shirt with some effort, but they were on Raph.

Raphael's face was red, but the embarrassment left him quickly, replaced by a stiff frustration. "I'm nineteen, Leo. We're consentin' adults-"

"-like _hell_ you are!" Leonardo did his best to keep his voice down as he said it. As much as he was disappointed in his brother, the last thing he wanted was a briefing about romance from Sensei, or to explain what he walked in on. "We just established, less than an hour ago, that she is willing to dislocate my shoulder to keep secrets from you, and the next thing I know, I walk in on you making out with her."

"Just because you can't get any, Leonard," Jude snapped over her shoulder, her blonde hair in her eyes. Raph stifled a snort. "Don't come in here with your self-righteous garbage. You heard your brother. We're adults. I'm older than _you_ are, and my intentions towards Raphael are nothing but good. You've got nothing to worry about."

"Other than what you're keeping from him - and the rest of us."

"Which you promised not to ask about, as per our agreement," Jude smirked at the oldest turtle. "Unless you're going back on your word, Honor Boy?"

"Don't call me that," Leonardo looked between them, and sighed. "Look, I've talked with the other two about this, and they know there's been something going on between you that goes beyond friendship. You can't hide it." He shrugged, and his eyes leveled to Raph. "Brother, I'm only doing this to look out for you. The evidence is plain."

"Lemme ask you somethin', Leo," Raph crossed his arms, "What's the real problem you've got with me and Jude together? The only thing that you've got a problem with, as you've said, is that she's keeping secrets from us. That's it? If she told me that secret, and just me, would you let her be? Let us be and mind your own goddamn business?"

Leonardo considered it for a second, chewed his lip. His gaze dropped to his feet, and his chest huffed. "Listen, I'm not saying that we'd always be the best of friends." He looked up to stare at Jude. "I don't like you."

"Don't really care." Jude shoved her hands into her pockets.

Leo shrugged again. "Glad we understand each other." He turned back to Raphael. "If she told you and it's important, you have to tell me. But if it honestly doesn't concern the Foot, I don't care if her secret is that she's hiding another set of eyes in the back of her head."

"And if I don't want anyone to know - period?" Jude asked, her voice trembling as her fingertips worried holes in her pockets.

Leonardo paused, and regarded how the boxer fidgeted. "Then maybe my brother shouldn't put his trust in someone who won't put their trust with him in return...I'll let you two discuss this."

With that, Leo left Raphael's bedroom, and shut the door behind him. Silence tugged at them both, two pillars of muscle standing and nervous about who would threaten the quiet first. Raphael moved to sit on the drum stool, bent over with his forearms on his knees. Jude hugged her arms around herself, her hair in her eyes as she fixed her gaze between her toes.

"You don't have to tell me," He said, and she flinched with the sudden sound. He looked at her, and something in him pulled to her like she were the sun. And he wanted desperately to stay in her orbit. In her life. "You don't have to, I don't care what it is."

"You don't have to lie to me," Jude shrunk down against the dresser, her legs curled up to her chest. She peeked at him between her knees. "I know it bothers you. I know it bothers you, being left in the dark."

"It does, I won't deny that, but…" He rubbed the back of his neck. "If it ain't important, I don't care. I really don't. If you don't trust me with it, you don't trust me with it. I've done nothing to keep you from telling me, I've been nothing but good with you...right?"

Jude tended to forget just how young Raph was. And that even though they weren't together in the conventional sense, she was the first person who'd been with him. His first kiss. She nodded. "Right. You have...but this is something that I just...it happened a long time ago."

"It obviously still bugs you," Raph wished she'd be close to him again. The distance, about four feet, was making his hands itch. He wanted to push the hair out of her eyes. "I'll understand. Whatever it is, I'll understand. I promise I will, just...please. Let me help."

She looked so small against the dresser, and even smaller when he reached his hand out to her. He offered a smile he meant, the best one he could give her. "C'mere. Please. Let me help."

Jude Ellis was one of the few people that could surprise Raphael, but this was the last situation he thought she would. It astonished him that she could make a sound so weak as she scrambled across the floor like a child, and crawled into his arms. He wrapped them around her, her head under his chin, and she held his bicep like a pillow to her face. Raphael felt tears slide over his skin, and he held her tighter.

"...that bad, huh?" Raphael started to rock her, draping her legs over his thigh. He had no clue what to do about a crying Jude, he'd never seen one before, but he knew what had helped Mikey with rough childhood dreams. Though something in how she was crying hard into his arm told him that what kept her awake at night was far beyond a light-hearted boy's nightmares.

"Say, uh…" Raphael sighed, and pecked her forehead as he searched for words. "I'll...I'll throw out words and you nod if they're close to what happened, okay? Don't have to say a thing. Don't have to admit to shit. It'll be just you and me, nobody else." He cupped her jaw, and led her eyes to his. He frowned as he saw them bloodshot and watery, her cheeks shining. "It's just me, Jude."

She nodded, and hiccuped. "...Go 'head."

She tucked her head under his chin again, hid her face from him. He didn't blame her. He knew he had to do this for her. He had to be supportive. He had to be there. He had to be nowhere but right there with her, holding her tight enough that when it came out and she broke apart, he could keep her together.

"Murder."

She nodded.

"Did you do it?" The question came too fast out of his mouth, and he sighed in relief as she kept still. "Not you...so...someone you know did it?" She nodded. "Family? Your dad?" She nodded. "Your dad killed someone…? Who was it?"

She didn't nod, but she tensed in his arms, like every muscle in her body flexed. And he said, "Did...the person he killed, did he...do something?"

A whimper that couldn't have belonged to Jude, he couldn't believe the sound came out of her, but it did. She nodded in disjointed, shaking movements. Raphael's mouth went dry as his mind raced with the possibilities, and coming onto only a few of them, the breath stole from him. His hands curled around her form closer, both of them chest-to-chest. "Did he do something to you?"

She nodded, and her heart slammed in her chest at what his next question would be.

What he asked was different. His voice was lower, a growl. "Did your dad get away with it? Killing him?"

She nodded. Raphael let out the pent-up air in his chest in a rumbling that reminded her of thunder.

"Good."

Jude lifted her head to look at him through her hair. Raphael had his eyes closed, his forehead creased with the anger he was forcing back down. Anger that was too late to have stopped what happened. His grip on her was hard, but not painful. He opened his eyes after a minute, and met hers.

Jude did not know what would have happened after she told someone, even if what actually happened hadn't been gone into with detail. She didn't know what to do next, to say next. She wanted to insist that he not pity her, but the way he held her prompted her to leave his lap. She stood up, wiped at her cheeks.

"Jude?" Raphael got up, and the words left his mouth before he could think. "Whatever happened, it isn't important to Leo. I won't tell him. It didn't have anything to do with the Foot."

"...It did." She said, "...My father murdered a Foot soldier."

He couldn't kept his jaw from dropping. Whatever the soldier did, it had to be damn bad for a man of James Ellis' caliber to kill him. From what Jude told him, James was an honorable man. A veteran of the ring, and a good father, Jude's childhood hero. It seemed that his care for her extended to be willing to kill for her too.

Jude picked up her jacket and put it on, wincing as she pushed her arms through the sleeves. Something in her burned to leave. She couldn't stay here another minute with him before she told him the whole story, and then she was convinced he'd never see her again. Her shame would make sure of it, and she was sure his pity would keep it that way.

"Where are you going?" Raphael asked her, moving between her and the door. "Jude. I know I shouldn't even bother askin', but what happened? What did that fucker do to you?"

Her next words cut through them both like a hot knife twisted in. "I don't think we should see each other anymore."

"What?" He breathed, straightening with brows furrowed in confusion.

When she turned around, her eyes were harsh and her nose wrinkled. The vulnerable girl that had cried in his arms not moments before was gone. The hard-fisted woman who had dislocated his brother's shoulder with her bare hands stared back at him. "I don't think it's a good idea to keep this," She gestured between them, "...going. It's causing havoc with your brother and your family, and we've made it clear that we won't do that to each other. We don't need that in our lives, so…"

"What are you saying?" Raphael's stomach dropped below him, and his eyes stung. "The hell did _that_ come from?"

"Doesn't matter," Jude said, waving it off dismissively before running a hand to detangle her hair. "You said it yourself that me keeping shit from you bothered you. You shouldn't be with someone like that, you should...do something else, I don't know. Be with somebody else."

"We weren't even together-"

"...Great, so-"

"-wait, that's not what I meant," Raphael clapped a hand over his eyes, and resisted the urge to knock his head against the wall. "What I meant was that we don't have to just _stop_ because my brother's throwing a hissy fit about you keeping something really bad from me. I don't blame you for keeping it from me, at all."

"Stop being friends or stop making out?" She asked, her eyes narrowed at him.

"How about you stop doing this?" He jabbed his finger at the ground. "You did this last time. Something about your past happened or was drug up, and you shut me out. I've had it up to here with that shit."

Jude's fists clenched at her sides. "Then stop putting up with it. It's established that this is bad. This isn't good for either of us. We're not even together and we have to 'stop' because Leo's upset? Because your family doesn't think it's a good idea? Fuck that. We're adults, and shit like that, but you can't replace family, Raph." She paused, and sighed. "I would know."

"So that's it, then?" Raph couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You're all over the place, Jude. One minute you're kicking major righteous ass, then you're joking with me as I patch you up, then you're putting your hands on me, then you're angry with Leo, crying on my lap, and then angry all over again, this time at me. What the hell, Jude? I mean, this is a huge 'pot, this is kettle' thing to nitpick about, I'm worse, but _shit_ , this is...It all makes sense, y'know? Why you'd shut me out about something like this, because…" He bit his lip, before he decided to say it. "...if what happened is what I think it is, I wouldn't want anyone to know either…"

Jude couldn't look at him. Her gaze went to the ground. "I need to go."

Raphael let out a noise of frustration, his hands scrubbing down his face. "You're so fucking frustrating, Jude. I care about you, so much, but you...you won't let me help you and I don't know what to say to get you to."

He surprised himself as the stinging in his eyes welled in tears, and his voice broke. "If you're content in being alone, then go. But I'm not. And I'm asking you not to go. If you really think you can go it alone, then go. I can't. I was hoping that you would never know, but I can't hide it anymore. I can't do this shit alone, Jude."

Her nails bit into her palms, and tears threatened her eyes too as she said. "What happened isn't something you just _get over_ , Raph. It's...it seeps into your skin and your bones, and you can't get clean anymore. You can't get clean and you spend hours in the shower scrubbing until your skin is raw...it's not something that you just...stop."

"Then for Christ's sake, let me help you," Raphael made the mistake of reaching out to touch her shoulder. But she flinched away from him, and for a moment and a moment alone, she met his eye.

"I'm sorry."

She left the room, throwing his door open with such force that the doorknob dented the wall. He heard her walk down the hall until her pace quickened to a sprint.


	11. DAY 199-240: The Lost Days

She spent the first week halfway between sorrow and a bottle of whiskey, although sometimes they tasted like the same thing.

When she wasn't drinking, she ran. She ran and ran all over New York City. She ran, knowing that the direction she wanted to go was down. She ran, hoping that with each smack her shoes made against the pavement a telegraph to him would be sent. _Come up. Come above ground._ But she knew he wouldn't.

She ran across the rooftops at night, the cool air wicked the sweat from her skin and she gasped it to soothe the aches and pains of life. She hoped to cross his path, but as the nights ticked by, she felt as if he avoided her on purpose.

…..

He did. He had never wanted them to grow apart, but inside, he prepared for the day they would walk past each other as indifferent strangers. He would watch from the shadows, stayed just out of sight as she sprinted by.

He muted his phone, so that when his brothers finally texted him about where he ran off to - she wouldn't recognize his ringtone out of the silence. But that didn't stop the staring he did at home, his eyes glued to her number in his phone and his thumb hovered over the 'call' button.

The picture he took for the photo contact was a rare smile he managed to catch when she wasn't looking. She had her dimples showing, and her eyes down like she was bashful. He loved that picture, and he saw it all the time when he wasn't looking at his phone, too. He wondered if she stared at his picture on her phone.

…

She did. One of the few pictures he let her take was back on his birthday. Beers by the toolbox, she took it selfie-style with him winking in the background and his hands around a motorcycle chain. He said it was the best birthday he'd ever had. And his birthday was coming again in a few months and she wasn't sure if she would get the chance to surprise him again. Or tell him happy birthday.

Hers passed through like any day: monotonous, busy, and the kind of radio static anxiety that kept Jude from any kind of joyfulness about being a quarter of a century old. She didn't expect any kind of olive branch. It had only been weeks since they cut it off, but when a single rose showed up on her windowsill that evening, Jude cried as she had not done since she got home that first night.

…

He'd heard her crying. He wanted more than anything in the world to go into that apartment, wrap his arms around her and make that sound stop. It seemed to twist a hot knife under his ribs, inching at his heart. He had heard her cry before, and his hands ached as he was forced to stand by and listen to it again.

He couldn't stay. He had to be back at the lair before they noticed he was gone. He ground his teeth, fought the stinging in his eyes, and ran back home. He shut himself in the sparring rooms, too angry to be alone in the room where they last kissed. And the room where they left each other cold. He couldn't bear another night of peeking through the dark at his dresser, and phantom sensations of her hands on him keeping him awake. There were rooms of his home he couldn't stay in anymore.

….

She would've offered up a lot of money to be able to sleep in her bedroom too. But every time she looked at her nightstand she was reminded that she kept the letter he wrote her in the top drawer, the one he wrote when he put her to bed after a drunken stupor. When he joked about the sparrow tattoos on her foot.

She must have read that letter a thousand times. She had smudged the initial he used to sign his name with how many times her thumb had rubbed over it. His handwriting was awful, but he was sweet. She sighed, and pulled her blonde hair behind her ear, which had grown out in curly waves to her chin.

….

" _I don't think we should see each other anymore._ " He couldn't get those words out of his head. He held his pillow over his head, ripped the pillowcase several times trying to block it all out. But she couldn't get out of his head. She wouldn't do it. How typical of her, he mused, making his life difficult and interesting at the same time.

" _Be with somebody else._ " Where on God's green earth was he going to find somebody else? Craigslist? He scoffed one night, mumbled to himself. "Mutant turtle seeking life partner. Star sign Aries. Likes swimming, sailing, long walks on the beach and quality time with the family." He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right...What did she even see in me anyway? Needs to get glasses."

…..

It wasn't like she was looking either. She went to bars to get a drink, not to look around for potential suitors. She drank reverently, avoided her ongoing search for trenchcoats. When she got home, she did her best not to look at the rose she was desperately trying to keep alive in a small glass vase of water. She scrubbed herself hard in the shower, put on whatever was clean and collapsed into her bed.

…

When he called her later that night, it was a complete and total accident.

He'd gotten home with plenty of time, nobody had even noticed he was gone. Everybody was still asleep. He slipped into his room, Mikey snoring through the walls next door. He kicked off his shoes, but when he took his phone out of his pocket, his big fingers accidentally pressed the call button next to her name.

"No, no, no…" He mumbled, and his thumb hovered over the 'end call' as she answered.

"Raph?" She must have just woken up, her voice had more of her accent when she was sleepy. "You there?"

He heard her sigh, and he finally put the phone to his ear. "...Yeah...I'm here."

There was a long silence over the line. Raphael could hear his heart hammering in his chest. He had to say something. The first thing he thought of was, "Happy Birthday, Jude."

"...Thanks." She had a smile in her voice, and one broke out on his face too. Like a reflex. "How're you doing, really?"

He didn't want any more secrets between them. No more walls, but he knew there had to be. "...I'm...not supposed to be talkin' to you."

"I know. I figured it was a prank or an accident that you called me."

He winced. "...Accident, but...I've wanted to call you. I've wanted to talk to you. It's just...we…" An image bubbled up, of her pulling him in and the way his body lit on fire when she kissed him. "We can't."

"...Shouldn't. Not can't." Jude corrected him, and his heart thrummed with something he hadn't felt since Christmas. "I regret it...Leaving."

"I get why you had to."

"Do you?" She asked. Her voice trembled like it did when she left. How she apologized.

He had thought about what she'd indirectly confessed to him. Took a lot of guts to do that, and in hindsight, he wished she hadn't been forced to tell him. Maybe she'd still be by his side. "Yeah...It didn't have anything to do with me, you just...needed to be away from it. Away from me."

"Not from you," Jude made a noise like a hiccup. "Could've done without that part."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have walked out," He said the words too fast, but he meant them. He hadn't meant for his voice to break. He bit his lip, "Y'know, typically, if you care about somebody like we do, you fight to stay. You saw a problem and you didn't even think about how I could help you, how we could work through it, no. The bravest person I knew _ran away_."

Another long silence, and a shaky inhale. She was doing her best not to cry, he could tell. He wished he was there to stop it, but he was rooted to the spot as she choked out, "...it

...it's hard to be brave about this. It happened at a time before I was strong enough to fight it off-"

"-Fuck you think I'm talking about? I'm not asking you to justify why it happened. Or why you left. I got that part. I'm asking you to justify staying gone, Jude."

"You weren't exactly busting down my door either, Raph."

Raphael glanced at his shoes and considered running to her for a moment. "Maybe I needed time to process. Maybe I...Maybe I needed to make sure I was okay."

"I'm glad you did," Jude whispered. "I'd go nuts if somethin' happened to you."

He exhaled a jagged breath, and his eyes stung hot. "...You too. I'd...If I lost you...shit. But I feel like I already have, honey." Raph pressed his palm into his forehead. "Maybe I didn't reach out because I wasn't sure if you wanted me to...And after so long being your best friend, that...really _hurt_ and I wish I would've stopped you from runnin' away. I wish I would've followed you."

"Y-You haven't lost me," She stuttered, and he could hear the effort in her not to cry. "Not yet. Not ever. I'm just...I need…"

"Space? Time?" Anything she asked for, he'd give.

"Both?"

Raphael nodded and cleared his throat. "Sure. You got it."

"...Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I…." He moved to lay back on his bed, an arm thrown over his eyes. "I ain't gonna like it, but...it's you."

"I'm-I'm asking too much again-"

"-Jude, stop-"

"I can't keep asking you to do this!" Jude sighed harshly, and he heard the walls of composure eroding. "I've asked you to do so much, and I can't keep piling it on. From the minute we met, I've latched onto you-"

"-did you ever stop and think that maybe I like being needed? By anybody?" Raphael asked her, his brow furrowed. "You do so much. Not just for me. The guys in your gym have a job thanks to you, those people who work out there have someplace to go to let off steam, the money you donate to that shelter every other month. Not to mention helping us with the Foot...You do so much and don't ask for or get much in return. You're a complicated person, I get that...But you're a complicated person who shoves the shit aside when somebody needs you. And you pull through for them."

He ground his teeth in his mouth before he said, "So how about you shut up about me doing shit for you and _actually let me do shit for you_? Let me help you. Do me a favor, do me this one thing that I'm askin' of you, and pull through for me, and let me fucking help you. Let me in. You're perfectly keen to help someone when it's something _they_ need. What about you, huh? When are you gonna own up to the fact that you need shit too? Why don't you pull through for me and let me be the friend I want to be?"

She hesitated or paused or to be honest, he didn't care. It was a full minute before he said, "Thought as much."

And he hit 'end.'

…..

She held the phone to her ear long after the line died. She heard her heart beating in her ears, and the choking sounds she made as tears slid down her face. She turned and threw the phone into the couch before she fell to her knees, her hands over her ears.

"What the hell is _wrong with me?_ " She shouted into the walls of her childhood home, as if they would give her the answers. She slumped over to lay on her side on the dusty floor, her knees up to her chest.

…

Nights and days passed unnoticed by both of them. Business hours flew by. The ghost of the gym in Harlem rarely came down the stairs to the weight rooms, not until after dark. Her training never stopped, only intensified until she throbbed with heat and sweat. The ghost of the sewers walked miles worth of the drains and the underground, almost along the same routes she ran in the very beginning. He did not know where he was going, but he didn't stop until his feet begged him to stop.

Pain was the only solace either of them knew. His anger and her sorrow were soothed by pain, when they were forced to halt their thinking and react. She hurt for her father. And he hurt for her, and for himself.

They were survivors. This was surviving. Being apart was the pain, and they endured as best they could. What they were wholly unprepared for was the pain stopping, when they crossed paths. Until then, it was a stalemate, and he broke it first.

…...

 **NIGHT OF DAY 240**

He was at her window when he saw them through the clear panes. Jude stood with her back to the windows he peeked through, and someone was with her. A guy, probably one of her trainers, with plenty of five o'clock shadow and standing far too close than Raphael was comfortable with. He stood behind her, and put his hands on the counter on either side of her.

Raphael felt his heart strangle itself in his chest. He knew that pose. He knew the back of her neck, he'd tasted the skin there. She turned in the other man's arms, and looked up at him with wide hazel eyes. He wanted to run and never return, Raphael swore he did, but he couldn't look away. He had to know what she did.

The guy's eyes went to her lips, and he leaned in, but Jude turned her face. His mouth touched her cheek, and she moved out of his embrace.

"I'm sorry," The guy said, rubbing the back of his neck.

 _Sure you are_ , Raphael thought with gritted teeth. Hot jealousy boiled in his stomach as the man tried to touch her shoulder, but she shrugged him off again.

"I can't," She said, her hair in her eyes and frowning.

Raphael let a breath leave him; why was she pushing him away? The guy looked at her for a long time, and said it with disappointment, "There's someone else."

"Yes," Jude raised her eyes to the ceiling, and sighed. "No...Maybe. It's complicated."

He squinted at her through the window. It wouldn't be complicated if she would let him in. He'd be the one in there with her, instead of hiding out on her fire escape like a creep. He'd be the one with his arms around her, not some pretty boy wearing Under Armour.

"How so?" The guy asked, blue eyes hopeful. Raphael had an overpowering urge to forcefeed him a brick.

"There's someone I was…" Jude ran a hand through her hair. Her nose wrinkled as she searched for words in the wood floors. "It was something that only sort of was...We weren't...together, but he's...he's…."

"You loved him…"

Raphael felt like he was going to throw up and shout with glee all at once. His gut churned as he watched her react. The line of her lip pricked up in one corner, and she hugged her arms around herself in that lonely way that made her seem smaller.

"He's my best friend," She said, although it wasn't an answer. She turned to face him. "...Point is...I can't do this. I appreciate you coming up to check on me, Ben, but…"

Raphael squinted at the guy. So his name was Ben. He didn't know Ben, but just looking at him made his knuckles itch.

Jude finished her sentence, "...I'm fine. I just need time, and…"

"Get your friend to forgive you or whatever's going on?" Ben offered, smiling at her.

She chuckled without humor, and Raphael felt a wash of shame go over him as she said, "...I doubt it. He's...pretty upset with me." He caught a glimpse of her face, of her eyes as she shrugged. "...I don't think he's gonna forgive me."

Ben shook his head, and put his hand on her shoulder. This time she didn't shove it off. "I don't have all the details, but...I hope it works out for you, boss. You deserve it."

Jude froze as Ben leaned in, and she didn't move an inch as his lips met her cheek. Raphael couldn't stay there anymore, his skin felt hot. He leapt from her fire escape and bolted as fast as he could for home.

…..

Jude wasn't going to risk going to the lair herself. She knew Leonardo had the ears of a bat, and Donatello had the entirety of the lair covered in security measures. But after her conversation with Ben, and his attempt to kiss her, her resolve came to see the man she really needed to talk to.

She texted him. **Central Park, the Christmas evergreen. Ten minutes**.

She was up in the branches, high enough to get a view of the park thirty feet up and down the lane. She'd see him. And she hoped to God he'd show.

…

This was a bad idea. This was _such_ a bad idea. Raphael kept thinking that over and over, even as he shrugged on his trenchcoat and got to walking. It may be some poor judgment to show up, but she texted him first. She reached out. Like hell if he wasn't going to show up.

He saw her before she saw him. He wasn't going to just walk into the park, and he leapt into a tree from a nearby building. He peeked through the leaves as he noiselessly moved from tree to tree, and caught a glimpse of her blonde hair. She was lounging in the branches, her hands behind her head. If he moved just so when he got closer…

A minute later he was poised in the branch above her. She had just closed her eyes, fatigue taking over. He whistled from above her, and she gave a start, almost falling off the branch with surprise.

"Mornin'," He said, and jumped down from his branch to the ground, six feet beneath her. He glanced up at her, taking off his hat and hanging it on a knot in the tree. "...Are you going to come down?"

"No," She said, still clutching the bark with raw fingernails. "You scared me."

Raphael smirked. He reached up to rattle her branch and Jude lost her balance, slipping off. He let go of the tree, and caught her swiftly in his arms. She glared at him as he set her on her feet and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"You called this meeting," He said, his arms folded."What do you want?"

"To talk…" Jude blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. "You said if I was ready to talk and let you be the friend you wanted to be...to tell you. Well, I'm here…"

Raphael tried not to wince as he remembered their phone call, and how her face seemed to sadden talking about it. Being so close to her, he saw her freckles bunch as she wrinkled her nose. He stepped to her, and looked away, "...I should've never talked to you like that."

"I deserved it," Jude said, and when he shook his head, she held up a hand. "Don't. I did. And every word you said was right. I was acting like a brat…I treated you like a stranger." She covered her eyes. "And that was so damn wrong, and I'm sorry, Raph, I'm so-"

Raphael wouldn't hear another word. He took the hand over her eyes and tugged her to him. His arms wrapped around her and his face buried in her hair, his heart singing in his chest. Jude melted into him, her cheek against his chest.

"Stop talkin'." Was all he said. His mind was still on the conversation he'd overheard, and he told her. "Ain't much I wouldn't forgive you for. Saying we shouldn't see each other, being the adult, and understanding what you need...That isn't big. We're still friends..." He inhaled the spicy smell of her hair, and tightened around her. "Just friends."

"Much as we don't wanna be," Jude whispered. "I'm not gonna be the cause of a rift in your family...It's not going to happen."

"If you ask me, he's just jealous...Leo's never had anybody like I have you."

"How's his face?" He felt her smile against him.

He snorted, and warmth soothed the icy shard in his gut that had formed when she left. "He only just got the sling off, and he's rehab'ing his shoulder."

"Sucks to be him," She let go of him first, but he kept close as his arms fell.

The emptiness of his hands nagged at Raphael's nerves. His eyes met hers, and a smile ghosted at his lips. Jude broke the stare first, shaking her head and laughing silently.

"What?" He asked, his face split in the grin that finally came. "What're you laughing about? Is there somethin' on my face?"

Her gaze moved to his lips, and then away again. "...I'm having a hard time with the 'just friends' part of this arrangement."

"Believe me," His fingers slipped into hers, and she felt the heat on his hands. "I don't like it either, but…"

Jude frowned as she retrieved her hand and put it in her pocket. "It's the way it is."

A rumbling growl erupted from Raphael, and he turned, looked like he might punch the trunk of the tree, but let his knuckles rest against it. "This is unfair as hell...You told me what you were keeping from me, why does Leo have to push his nose into everything?"

"Because I'm going to help you and your brothers bring down the Foot," Jude said, her voice clear and cold. "And if I'm doing that, Leonardo has to have us focused. We can't bring down the Foot if we're constantly worried about each other...and if we're more than friends, that makes it easier for them to target us individually. They cut you, I bleed."

Raphael bit his lip. "We're the best fighters in this city, we're not easy targets-"

"-You're bulletproof with a shell, Raph. I'm not."

"My point exactly. If we're together, then we're safe."

"He says after a long-ass time of not seeing each other."

"Okay, okay, good point."

Jude weaved her fingers together and paced in a circle with her hands on the nape of her neck. He watched her with nervous intensity. After a moment, she said, "We can't keep going round and round with the periods where we don't talk. We need to stop that shit. We're in each other's lives, no use trying to change that."

"Right," He agreed. "But...worst case scenario, they get one of us...what's our backup plan? What do we say - in case we're in trouble?"

"Something we never say otherwise," Her hands fell by her sides. "Something only we'd know."

Raphael thought back over the entire course of their relationship, and the way her hair caught the light from the Central Park lamps brought him the memory of their first meeting. She'd asked him for a lighter. "...Say you're going for a smoke."

"That'd work…" She met his eye, and the harder lines of her face, the hollows of her cheeks, softened as she said, "You helped me quit. That Nicorette box, remember?"

He nodded, smiling. Silence lighter than the humid air between them fell, and he mumbled something about walking her home after a minute. He grabbed his hat from the knot of the tree, prepared to bow his head and look grim as a way to shield himself.

But how could he frown with her tiny hand woven into his?

They walked out of Central Park, and braved the late night streetlights all the way home, hand-in-hand. In truth, he didn't want her out of his sight. Not in this dark.

They were rounding the block onto Jude's street close to two in the morning, and a lump formed in his throat, like he'd swallowed candle wax. He didn't want to let her go yet. When they got to her doorstep, she moved to release his hand, but he held her tighter.

She watched with confusion as he lifted her hand in his, and kissed her knuckles. To her own surprise, blood rushed to her cheeks and she heard him chuckle at her reaction. "Cute...G'night, short-stack."

She squinted at him as he turned to leave, his hands in his trenchcoat. She called after him, "...Hey, Raph?"

He half-turned, and threw his hands in the air. "Jeez, Jude. What d'you want? I'm a busy dude."

Jude jogged down her steps to him, closed the distance. She clutched two handfuls of his coat collar and yanked him down to her. She kissed him hard, his hat hiding their face from the light. He staggered, before his arms curled around her and scooped her up. He shuffled with her against his chest, pushing the door open with his hip.

She kicked it shut behind them.


End file.
